


Balloon Animals Are Awesome

by DiscontentedWinter



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Derek is terrible at communicating, First Kiss, First Time, M/M, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-09
Updated: 2014-12-17
Packaged: 2018-02-28 20:15:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2745563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiscontentedWinter/pseuds/DiscontentedWinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is totally in love with Lydia. Until one day he's not.<br/>Fuck his life.<br/>And seriously? Derek? Derek Hale?<br/>He can't be in love with Derek Hale. Derek <i>hates<i></i></i> him.<br/>Doesn't he?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Emma_Sea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emma_Sea/gifts).



> This is my first attempt at writing fanfic. I hope it's as much fun to read as it was to write.  
> Thanks to Emma Sea for beta reading!
> 
> *** 
> 
> I do not own Teen Wolf or anything associated with Teen Wolf.  
> Please feel free to share and link this fic wherever you'd like.
> 
> Also, I keep forgetting to tell people I'm now on tumblr:[thisdiscontentedwinter](http://thisdiscontentedwinter.tumblr.com)

Stiles has been in love with Lydia forever. Forever. Well, since third grade, which is pretty much the same thing. It’s one of those epic romances, probably, that hasn’t got a lot going for it in terms of action yet, but it’s got _longevity_. It’s a sweeping grand saga of a love story that will echo down the ages. Poets will write sonnets about it. Bards will compose songs about it. It’s the sort of love story that should come fitted with Technicolor sunsets and an orchestral soundtrack that will swell into a triumphant barrage of noise when Stiles and Lydia finally get together at the end. With the kissing. And the other stuff that comes after the kissing. Stiles has spent a lot of time thinking about the other stuff.

A lot.

Way, way too much time.

He’s pretty much at the point where he’s going through a bottle of shower gel a week. And he’s not scrubbing his back with it.

So after years of unrequited love that would make a great movie, and almost as long of Quality Alone Time in the shower – which would make an entirely different sort of movie. Not the sort that would win critical acclaim, probably—Stiles is incredibly shocked one day to realize that he isn’t in love with Lydia anymore.

He’s in love with Derek Hale.

Derek Hale who pretty much hates him.

It could not be any worse.

Oh, wait. It totally could be.

And it totally is.

Derek Hale is a werewolf. A werewolf who has only barely been suppressing the urge to rip Stiles’s throat out since the day they met. At first Stiles had thought they were engaging in amusing banter. Everyone loves Stiles’s banter. It’s _charming_. And then, one night, Scott drew him aside and said, _“Man, you really need to dial it back with Derek.”_

_“What do you mean?”_

_“The way you never shut up.”_

_“It’s called banter, Scott, and it’s charming.”_

_“Banter is like the tango, Stiles. It takes two.”_

Bantering about banter. For a second Stiles had gotten distracted by the awesomeness of that, the sheer absurd meta-ness, but then the truth had hit him: Scott was right. Derek never responded to Stiles’s constant verbal prodding, except with grunts, growls, and the Intricate Dance of Disapproval performed entirely with his eyebrows.

So how is he possibly in love with Derek Hale?

Stiles does the only thing he can think to do:

He stages an intervention.

Except obviously he isn’t going to _tell_ anyone about this, so he stages a solo intervention one night. It mostly involves caffeine, Cheetos, self-recrimination, and internet porn that is absolutely 100% straight and, even when it isn’t, definitely does not involve older hot guys with dark hair and piercing eyes who made growling noises.

No. Definitely not.

Scott sends him a text message a little after nine: _Where r u?_

“I am wallowing in my bed surrounded by cheesy dust, tissues, and shame,” Stiles tells his phone.

He types out: _Home_.

_What r u doing?_

“Oh, Scott. Scott, Scott.” He sighs loudly. “Scotty McScott-Scott. You really don’t want to know the answer to that.”

He sends back: _Studying._

Scott doesn’t answer for a while, and Stiles feels a little stab of guilt. Especially since Scott might actually be the one feeling left out for once. “Studying” has been their code for “pizza and video games and trash talk” since forever. Until just now when Stiles changed the meaning to “self-loathing and chronic masturbation”. Which he’s certainly not going to tell Scott.

He flicks a tissue onto the floor, making a face at it as though he had nothing to do with how it got to be in such a disgusting condition.

 _R u ok?_ Scott finally texts back.

Stiles can almost hear the suspicious worry behind the question. Scott has kind of (by which Stiles means _absolutely_ ) eclipsed him this past year. He’s always been better looking with unfairly awesome hair, and even slightly better at lacrosse, which didn’t really matter since they were both benched so often, but suddenly he’s a wolf, and suddenly he’s the best player on the field, and suddenly he’s got a girlfriend, and he’s even probably (by which Stiles means _absolutely_ ) having sex.

And it _absolutely_ , totally, unreservedly sucks ass.

Stiles has been feeling a little left out for a while now. He tries to make himself useful to Scott, to help him through all the wolfy weirdness, but how useful is he, really? He researches stuff, but it’s not as though that’s difficult. Everything is only a Google search away, right? He’s certainly proven that tonight.

Time to delete his search history: _free porn gay hot brunet_

 _And…_ now it’s deleted it never happened.

No, siree. The last three hours never happened at all.

Stiles shuts his laptop and looks at his phone again. He still hasn’t answered Scott.

_R u ok?_

Stiles really has no idea how to answer that.

_Scott, I am suffering a momentary psychosexual aberration. I hope to be cured after another box of tissues and a good night’s sleep._

_Scott, go and do wolfy things and don’t worry about me. I am okay. I am beyond okay. I am peachy._

_Scott, for future reference “ruok” is not a word. It is the sound an asthmatic frog makes._

In the end he goes for a version of the truth that isn’t exactly what’s going on, but, with the right sort of smooth-talking lawyer, would get him acquitted on a technicality: 

_Just having an early night. See you tomorrow._

***

What it is, Stiles decides the next week, is some weird kind of transference. Or some other psychological term he’s picked up from daytime television and possibly never properly understood. Anyway. What’s happening here is clear. He obviously wants to learn everything he can about wolves, thereby getting more quality time with Scott with the added ego boost of not always feeling like a weak, scrawny waste of space, and his brain must have figured out that the way to be most valuable to Scott is to find a way to ally himself to the closest thing Scott has to a wolf mentor: Derek. And since Derek obviously doesn’t enjoy conversation, or have any discernible hobbies apart from brooding and advanced eyebrow calisthenics, Stiles’s subconscious zeroed in on the one thing every guy, and every wolf-guy, wants:

_Bow chicka bow wow._

So there it is. Mystery solved.

It’s not love. It’s not even physical attraction. It’s purely psychological: he wants Derek to want him. And, because he’s an emotionally stunted chronically hormonal teenager, his sixteen-year-old brain can only process that need as sexual, when it isn’t.

It so clearly isn’t.

As theories go, it’s pretty solid.

Yep. Pretty damn solid.

And it will stay that way, as long as he doesn’t examine it too closely, right?

So now that’s figured out, he can get on with his life.

Right?

So he does.

***

In July, Stiles gets stabbed in the chest in the woods.

“Funny story,” he wheezes in the passenger seat of Derek’s Camaro.

“Shut up, Stiles,” Derek says, which Stiles chooses to believe is just another way of saying, dewy-eyed with emotion, _“Shh, don’t try to talk.”_ But probably isn’t. Anyway, if this is Stiles’s action hero and/or death scene, he’s going to soliloquize the fuck out of it.

“Funny story,” he begins again, doggedly, “but until tonight I didn’t even _believe_ in dryads. Until one attacked me.”

“In what?” Derek glares at him.

“Dryads,” Styles informs him. “Tree spirits that are apparently nasty and vengeful and in league with the Alpha pack.”

Derek’s eyebrows do a complicated dance.

“Stabbed me,” Stiles says. “Right here. Dude, it came out of nowhere. So fast.”

“There is no such thing as dryads,” Derek tells him. “You tripped over and impaled yourself on a stick.”

Stiles reaches out and grabs him, clawing at his knee. “When we tell this story later, we’re going to go with my version, okay?”

Derek looks down at Stiles’s hand on his knee, looks back at Stiles’s face again, then glares out the windshield.

“Okay,” Stiles says, removing his hand. Personal boundaries and growly wolves and whatnot. “So we’re agreed.”

The next morning though, when he’s recounting his tale of dryad-related horror for Scott, he can’t help but think from his skeptical glances that Derek got to him first.

What an asshole. 

***

In September, just when Stiles is thinking he’s finally on top of this deeply disturbing man-crush, he accidentally gets messed up in this thing with a bunch of hunters. And he’s done. Seriously done. Because even if he thought Derek was a complete and utter douchenozzle, and, okay, a part of him still _does_ think that, when the window shatters and Derek leaps through looking all vengeful and wolfed-out and he’s there to rescue Stiles…well, what’s guy supposed to do? Stiles isn’t made of stone. Well, except for that one part of him.

And now Derek’s looking down at his crotch. Awkward.

“Anyway,” Stiles says brightly. “Thanks for the rescue.”

Or at least that’s what he intends to say. What comes out instead is: “Anyway. Thanks...” and lots of hitching breaths and gasps and a few things that sound suspiciously like tears. Because okay, he was legitimately fucking terrified for a moment there. He’s been terrified before— hardly a day goes by now when he’s not terrified by something on some level—but these guys were terrifying in a whole new way. Stiles is almost used to things that want to kill him. He’s not so used to things that smile at him like they want to violate his virginal body in unspeakable ways first. And mouth-breathe all over him.

Derek looks awkward. He reaches out, and for a second Stiles thinks he might actually deign to pat him on the shoulder in a comforting yet manly way, but instead he withdraws his hand before he makes contact.

“You smell like them,” Derek says, his mouth turning up in a silent snarl.

“Oh, okay,” Stiles says. “Well, next time I’ve been kidnapped I’ll try and shower and spruce myself up a bit before the rescue, shall I? Maybe spritz a little Armani _Acqua di Gio_ while I’m at it?”

Derek’s eyebrows shoot up. Seriously, they are like the only part of him that is able to express emotion. Then they knit together again in a customary scowl. “ _Acqua_ what?”

“It’s a cologne,” Stiles explains, grabbing his hoodie from the floor. “Apparently it’s woody and herby at the same time. I might have been doing some early Christmas shopping online for my dad last night, although he’s always been a fan of Ralph Lauren’s _Polo Blue_.”

How the hell has this even turned into a discussion about cologne? And why is Derek looking at him like he’s speaking a foreign language.

“What are you talking about, Stiles?”

“Cologne. I’m talking about cologne. Obviously.”

“Why?”

Stiles waves his hands. “Because this is how conversation _works_ , Derek. Between people. We talk about the weather, and that new coffee place that’s opened up where the dry cleaners was, and Obamacare, and who J-Law is dating, and what sort of cologne I should buy.”

Derek’s eyebrows leap again. “You don’t need cologne, Stiles. You already smell kind of woody.”

Stiles holds his hoodie in front of his erection. “Well, that happens to be a fear response that’s perfectly normal.”

Derek actually takes a step back. “I didn’t mean...”

“Can we go now?” Stiles asks. “Before this conversation gets any more awkward?” He strides for the door.

“I meant you smell like the woods,” Derek mutters behind him. “All of the time.”

No. No, apparently Derek isn’t quite finished with the awkwardness yet.

It’s going to be a long ride home.

***

“Stiles?” His dad sticks his head around his door. “It’s Friday night. Any plans?”

The worst part about having a dad who is the town sheriff is that sometimes Stiles thinks John is using him as an informant. As though Stiles is cool enough to be invited to the sort of activities the police would be interested in.

Stiles rolls over onto his back, dislodging the book he was reading. “Yeah, I was thinking of going to the big secret party over on Miller Street tonight. Apparently it’s only twenty bucks for all the booze and amphetamines you want. Ten, if you’re willing to have underage sex with the dealers. It’s not totally my scene, but you can’t argue with bargains like those.”

His dad takes a moment of silence, during which he’s probably thinking about where he went wrong. “Actually, I was just wondering if you and Scott are still hanging out. He hasn’t been around much lately.”

“Since he got together with Allison, you mean.” Stiles glowers, but doesn’t mention the other big thing that’s taking up so much of his best friend’s life. Scott has a problem with body hair and fleas when the moon’s full these days, but Stiles intends on taking that to his probably-early grave.

“Ah,” his dad says with a knowing nod. “And ah…”

“And I don’t,” Stiles confirms.

“You don’t have a girlfriend?”

Stiles sighs, glares, rolls his eyes, and then briefly considers other ways he could possibly channel a thirteen-year-old girl at this point, short of listening to One Direction. “Yes. I would think the fact that I’m home alone on a Friday night, and also the fact that I just said that I didn’t have a girlfriend when you asked, would both point strongly in that direction.”

His sarcasm isn’t enough to deflect his dad. The man’s been building up an immunity for years now. He steps inside the room. “So...?”

Stiles does not like where this is going. He doesn’t exactly know where it’s going, but he trusts his instincts. “So?” he asks, voice low with suspicion.

“Ah.” John wrinkles his nose and rubs his forehead.

Sometimes Stiles can hardly believe his dad is the sort of man who can face off with bad guys and be all intimidating and shit to suspects when he apparently can’t ask his sixteen-year-old son a straight question.

“Come on, Dad. Spit it out.” He tries for a grin and it kind of misfires, because suddenly all he think is what if it’s bad news? What if this isn’t one of those Awkward Talks About The Sex that he thought his dad was going for by asking if he has a girlfriend? What if it’s something so much fucking worse that there’s no smartass comeback in the world that’s big enough to diffuse it? He had that doctor’s appointment last week. What if it was bad news? What if this is his dad trying to share all his fatherly wisdom with Stiles in the short time he’s got left? Stiles can’t hold his grin. “You’re killing me here.”

John looks suddenly contrite. “No, it’s nothing, nothing _bad_.”

They’ve both spent too many hours of their lives here in Stiles’s room, talking through the bad stuff. Half of Stiles’s life has been shadowed by it. It’s the sort of thing that leaves a hole. Even after all this time Stiles can still feel the empty shape that his mom made in his life by being torn out of it. Every day.

He’s not the only one.

John looks shaken too.

“Okay.” Stiles taps his fingers along the cover of his book, and tries to recover his equanimity. “Oh god. You’re not really going to talk to me about girls, are you? Because I think we already had this conversation when I was twelve, and I’m only just starting to recover flashes of the memories I repressed back then.”

His dad laughs. “Well, it’s been a while since I was traumatized as well, you know.”

Stiles sighs, and sits up. “Okay. Hit me. What are those crazy birds and bees up to nowadays?”

His dad sits down on the end of his bed. “Okay. The birds and the bees.” He draws a deep breath, like he’s bracing himself to dive into a cold lake. “Well, sometimes it’s not about the birds and the bees, is it? Sometimes it’s about the birds and the birds, or the bees and the bees.”

“Oh, sweet zombie Jesus. Please tell me this metaphor isn’t going where I think it’s going?” Stiles is pretty sure his eyes are about to bug out of his head. “You think I’m a bee who likes other bees? Is that why you asked me if I had a girlfriend?”

“I don’t think anything,” his dad says. “I just want you to know that, if you were, you know…”

“A bee who likes other bees,” Stiles repeats.

“If you were a bee who likes other bees,” his dad agrees, making a face, “then that would be okay.”

Stiles wrestles with this for a moment, wondering if he has any right to feel outraged here. His dad thinks he’s gay because he doesn’t have a girlfriend? He supposes it’s better than the truth: that he doesn’t have a girlfriend because he’s a complete and total loser. Yeah, he’s pretty sure that’s the truth… and he’s absolutely not thinking of Derek Hale right now. Derek is not at all relevant to this conversation. Not. At. All.

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Okay, so thanks, first of all.”

His dad looks wary.

“Thanks for assuming the reason I’m single is because I’m closeted, not a gigantic dork who can only get girls to look at him if they’re pointing and laughing. And your speech? Seriously, Dad, that speech needs some work, but it may be the coolest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

John’s face softens.

“For the record,” Stiles continues, and then stops. He can’t lie to his dad. Well, actually, if the past few months have proven anything it’s that he absolutely can. And does. Constantly. But maybe it’s the sheer volume of lies that he’s told to cover up all the crazy shit that’s happening in Beacon Hills, to protect his dad from it, that Stiles can’t bring himself to tell another lie now. He meets his dad’s steady gaze and regroups. “Okay, so, for the record, there is some stuff I’m sort of trying to figure out at the moment, and it’s awesome that, you know, that maybe if I ever did bring home a, um, a…”

“A bee?” his dad asks, his mouth turning up in a faint smile.

Stiles’s face is burning. “Sure. If I ever was to bring home a _bee_ , it’s beyond cool that you’d be open to that.”

“Okay,” his dad says, and claps him on the shoulder. He looks relieved. Probably because he’s managed to tackle this subject entirely with euphemisms. “Well, I would be. That’s what I wanted you to know.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“And…” Uh oh. His dad is looking awkward again. “And, um, about being safe. Do you know—”

“Yes!” Stiles cut in. “Let’s spare ourselves the safe sex talk for tonight, please? I’ve taken health classes. I’m up on all the latest theories about putting condoms on bananas and, trust me, Dad, it’s _all_ theoretical, okay?”

There have been no birds, no bees, and no bananas. Just Stiles, his box of tissues, and his internet connection.

His dad’s expression looks like it’s caught somewhere between relief and pity. “Well, it’s good that you’ve waited.”

 _Waited_ , Stiles thinks. _Yeah, let’s call it that._

Relief. It’s definitely relief on his dad’s face. He clears his throat and makes for the door again. “Good talk, son.”

“Yep.”

“I’m making dinner,” his dad says. “Come downstairs when you’re—”

“Not as mortified?”

His dad cracks a smile. “Hungry.”

“I will.” Stiles picks up his book again but he can’t actually concentrate.

Good talk.

Weird talk.

For a second Stiles tries to imagine bringing Derek Hale home to meet his dad.

_“Oh hey. Dad. You remember Derek? The murder suspect? Yeah, we’re like a thing now. Oh, and he’s twenty-two. But you’re still cool, right?”_

He snorts at the thought of it.

Lucky it’s absolutely never going to happen. 

***

 It happens. 

***

Stiles is running for his life through the woods—must be a day ending in a Y—when somehow, he suddenly isn’t. He’s lying on his back and the air has been so completely smashed out of him that he can’t suck any back into his lungs. He gasps, winded, waiting for whatever the fuck is chasing him to appear out of nowhere and end him.

Something grips him by the ankle with talon-like claws. Stiles tries to scream, but the only sound that escapes him is a pneumatic wheeze, and then he’s being dragged along the forest floor. He scrabbles for something to hold onto, but only finds a handful of damp leaves and pine needles.

 _Oh god oh god oh god oh god_.

He’s going to die.

He’s so fucking sorry he was ever stupid and reckless and— _oh god_ —this is going to _kill_ his dad.

Then there’s a flash of moment in the darkness beside him. Something travelling fast barrels into whatever’s holding Stiles, and it lets go. In the darkness, Stiles can’t see anything except black shapes. Snarls and the sound of snapping jaws fill the air.

A wolf.

One of the pack.

But he knows who it is. It’s who always rescues him.

It’s _Derek_.

***

“What the hell are you doing out here, Stiles? Where’s Scott?”

“I am capable of looking after myself, you know.” Except that’s not very satisfying to say when he’s lying on his back on the forest floor after almost being killed by whatever the hell that thing was.

Derek and his eyebrows clearly know it’s a lie.

“Okay, so I can get up, you know.” Stiles’s ankle is bleeding pretty badly, but it’s only the skin that’s broken. His bones are all still in exactly the right configuration.

Derek makes a growling sound. His eyes flash as he inspects Stiles’s ankle.

“Still a little wolfed out, huh?” Now that the action’s over, Stiles feels weird. He’s shaky, and cold, and his heart is still trying to beat out of his chest. It’s the adrenaline dump, he guesses. Any second now and he’ll crash, big time.

Derek narrows his glowing eyes. “A little.” He’s kneeling beside Stiles’s feet, and now he leans down close, like he’s…

“Dude, are you smelling my blood? Because that’s creepy!”

“It smells…” Derek sniffs again. “Like you.”

“Well, that’s because it is me,” Stiles says, drawing his knees up. He considers the implication of what Derek says for a moment, and can’t stop the shiver going through him. Because what if it didn’t smell like him? “What the hell was that thing?”

“I don’t know.”

“Comforting.”

Derek huffs, and climbs to his feet, and holds down his hand. Stiles takes Derek’s hand and Derek pulls him to his feet.

Stiles winces. “Please tell me you’re parked super close.”

“About a mile and a half.”

“Dude, that is not super close at all.” Stiles rubs his cheeks. They’re cold. Then he catches the way Derek’s looking at him. “What?”

Derek doesn’t answer. Just shrugs off his leather jacket and holds it open. Stiles is too cold to argue. He wraps himself in Derek’s jacket. In Derek’s warmth, and Derek’s scent, and has Derek ever jerked off while wearing this jacket?

“So, um,” he says. Baseball. Capital cities. The periodic table. Anything to not think about Derek and his jacket and his dick. “A mile and a half, you said?”

Derek doesn’t answer, which is par for the course really. Derek hardly ever answers. Just stares at Stiles for a second, then starts walking.

Stiles shoves his hands inside the pockets of Derek’s jacket and limps after him. “Ow. Ow. Ow.” He takes a breath. “Ow ow ow.”

Derek stops. Turns. Huffs. Glares some more.

“What, dude? I’m injured, remember? Physically, and, I’m gonna be honest here, a little emotionally.” That cannot be a packet of gum in Derek’s pocket. Derek wouldn’t do anything as normal as chew gum. “I mean, you know I’m hurt, and you’re just striding along like Paul Bunyan. Is a little consideration too much to ask?”

Sometimes Derek gets this look like he’s trying really, really hard not to laugh. And sometimes he gets this look like he’s going to punch Stiles in the face and then rip his throat out. And one day, Stiles swears, he’s going to figure out the difference between those two expressions.

Derek takes a step toward him, and Stiles takes one back. “You don’t want to get blood on your favorite jacket, do you? Or is it your only jacket? Same thing, in that case, am I right?”

Derek tilts his head. “What?”

“Your jacket.” Stiles hunches his shoulders. “It’s a very nice jacket, and it’d be a crime against fashion to get my blood all over it.”

“Why would…” Derek stops, and shakes his head rapidly like a dog trying to get water out of its ears. “I’m not going to punch you, Stiles.”

“Are you sure?” Stiles sags with relief. And then sneezes all over Derek’s jacket. It’s kind of snotty.

“I _was_ ,” Derek says. “Now I’m not.”

“Oh, funny.” Stiles sniffs.

Derek steps toward him, jostles against him, and Stiles flails. He’s aware of heat and strength and a scrape of stubble against his hand that’s gone before he even registers what it was. Oh shit. He has no idea what’s going on, but did he just smack Derek in the face?

“Oh, um.” Stiles’s arm is stretched out along the wide plain of Derek’s shoulders, and Derek’s holding it there. His grip on Stiles’s wrist is firm and hot. Just like the rest of him. Stiles feels like he’s leaning against an incredibly ripped radiator.

Also, seriously, what the hell is going on?

“Come on,” Derek says, and oh, okay, Derek is helping him walk. That’s what’s going on here. Which is kind of nice, really, and would be a hell of a lot less awkward if his proximity wasn’t doing embarrassing biological things to Stiles.

A mile and a half is a long way to walk with a throbbing… ankle.

Yeah, ankle. 

***

 “So, how’s the pack?”

Derek doesn’t answer. Of course Derek doesn’t answer. Stiles doubts he’d tell someone the time, even under torture.

“Where are they anyway? Chasing rabbits?”

That’s definitely a growl.

“Well, tell them I said hi.”

Actually, Stiles hates Derek’s pack. Most of the time, anyway. They’re dicks. Of course they’re dicks. Derek took a bunch of teenage malcontents and gave them super powers. What else would they be? Sometimes Stiles thinks about how quiet Erica was before she got turned, and how she told him that he’d never even noticed her. Of course he hadn’t. He was too busy being not noticed by Lydia.

Nobody noticed Isaac either, or all his bruises.

Or Boyd.

High school was living hell for Derek’s pack back when they were regular kids, but making them wolves hasn’t made things better. It’s just made them stronger, and crueler. And a gazillion times more confident. Stiles is pretty sure they’re all having sex as well. Loud, aggressive wolf sex. With biting.

At this point, Stiles will settle for any sort of sex he can get. Which is none, obviously.

God, why does Derek have to be so hot—in both senses of the word—and strong and muscular and why does helping Stiles to the car involve so much _touching_? Stiles feels like he’s about to implode here.

“Oh my god. How long _is_ this walk? I’m going to die a vir—” Holy shit. He did _not_ almost say virgin. “Old age. I’m going to die of old age.”

Derek looks at him narrowly. Sometimes Stiles wonders how his jaw doesn’t just pop right out, he clenches it so hard.

“Awkward silences are my favorite,” Stiles sighs, and they continue on through the reserve. 

*** 

His dad is on night shift. When Stiles finally limps through the front door, the house is dark and quiet, and for a second Stiles hates it. He’s tired, and he’s hurt, and sometimes it would be fucking nice to have someone say _Hey, are you okay?_ and maybe make him a hot chocolate with a marshmallow in it.

Stiles doesn’t make a hot chocolate. He barely has the energy to climb the stairs and get in the shower. If he didn’t have half the woods stuck to him, and that whole bloody ankle issue to deal with, he would probably just collapse face-down on his bed and crash. The shower revives him a little, but not enough that he can be bothered go downstairs and fix himself something to eat. He’s more tired than he is hungry.

After his shower he dresses then dabs antiseptic lotion on his ankle, stings at the hiss, and hobbles to his room. He burrows under the blankets and drowses in the warmth. Then he remembers he really should text Scott and let him know he’s not dead. So that’s exactly what he texts:

_Not dead. FYI._

He’s not really surprised when his phone rings immediately. “Hey, Scott.”

“Are you okay? What happened?”

“I was in the woods. This thing happened. And Derek rescued me.”

“Derek did?” Scott’s voice is low with suspicion. He and Derek have an uneasy relationship. Scott doesn’t want to play beta wolf to Derek’s alpha. He’s not interested in being in his pack. And that’s before the whole Argent thing. They’re never going to see eye to eye on that.

“Yeah.” Stiles peels down the end of his comforter and checks. Derek’s jacket is still hanging off the back of his chair. So he didn’t imagine that part. “He was pretty cool about it. Not a single death threat.”

Which is right when Stiles spots the glowing eyes at his window.

His stomach lurches and clenches. His skin prickles. His heartbeat races. All symptoms of being unexpectedly confronted with the supernatural. The erection suddenly tenting his pajama pants? Not so much.

“So anyway, I’d better go,” he says as his window slowly opens. He ends the call without waiting for Scott’s response. Derek climbs in his window, and somehow doesn’t end up in a tangle of limbs on Stiles’s bedroom floor. Stiles would, if he tried it. Somebody that hot deserves to be as clumsy as fuck. Also, if he was as dumb as a rock that would be okay too. But of course he isn’t. It’s just more proof that the universe is patently unfair. Not that Stiles needed any proof. “Hey, did you come back for you jacket?”

Derek’s gaze flicks to his jacket, then straight back to Stiles. “No.”

Stiles’s heart is beating so fast that he knows Derek can hear it. Shit. Who’s he kidding? Derek could probably hear it from the other side of Beacon Hills. He swallows. “Um…”

“Stiles.”

“Yes? Yep? That’s me. That’s my name.” He’s blathering. It’s what he does best. It’s Stiles 101. Actually, maybe Stiles 102. 101 is flailing. He’s doing that now too. Somehow a casual stretch just to show how fucking calm he is about Derek Fucking Hale being in his bedroom turns into a spasm. “Well, not actually my name in that it’s not on my birth certificate, but seriously, god, my actual name looks like Satan vomited up a Scrabble set. So we don’t mention it. At all. Ever.”

Derek moves closer. No, not moves, prowls. He fucking _prowls_ , muscles rolling smoothly underneath his skin, eyes narrowed, and Stiles has never felt more like prey in his life. Well, in the last half an hour anyway. He’s felt like prey plenty of times. Just not the sort of prey that might _want_ to get caught.

And great. That awkward erection? It’s wet now. Just a tiny drop of precum that’s immediately swallowed by the fabric of his pajama pants, but Stiles doesn’t miss the way Derek’s nostrils flare and his narrowed eyes flash red. He knows. He can _smell_ it, which is simultaneously the hottest and most disgusting thing Stiles has ever encountered.

How the hell do werewolf kids go through puberty with their dignity intact if every other wolf in the vicinity can smell a boner? Stiles has always thought of himself as pretty cool and easy-going, a realist when it comes to the awkward teenage sex stuff—his conversation with his dad about bees notwithstanding—but there’s a difference between making the occasional joke about needing his special private time and asking if he’s attractive to gay guys, and broadcasting loudly on every frequency to everyone in the vicinity that he’s sexually aroused. Stiles is pretty sure he couldn’t have handled that sort of pressure at thirteen. Actually, he’s pretty sure he can’t handle it now.

Derek’s gaze drops to Stiles’s crotch. The comforter is hiding any actual sign of it, but yeah, this could probably not be more humiliating. But it turns out that maybe Stiles is totally kinky or something, because when every part of his body should be shriveling up in embarrassment, his erection just keeps on keeping on. 

He wants to make some joke about still smelling woody, but their weird conversation about cologne was weeks ago, and Stiles isn’t sure he should bring it up now. Trying to diffuse an awkward erection situation by referencing an exchange they had so long ago? By showing that he remembers every word of it? Why the hell doesn’t he get a My Little Pony journal, start a page entitled “Squishy and Tingly Feelings I Have For Derek Hale” then read it aloud for Derek and offer up what sad little shred of dignity he has left? Offer it up for immolation on the incredibly burning hot altar of Derek and his abs.

“Stiles,” Derek says again. His left eyebrow quirks. Just the left. Seriously, the amount of eyebrow control he has is amazing. Probably a supernatural thing too.

“What?” Stiles rasps. His mouth is dry.

Derek stalks closer until he’s standing right at the foot of Stiles’s bed, the fabric of his jeans rasping gently against the comforter. He tilts his head slightly. “You talk too much.”

Stiles closes his mouth. He’s pretty sure he stopped talking a while ago, but sometimes it’s hard to tell. And it’s totally possible that Derek is talking in general terms, since that seems to be most people’s opinion about Stiles. He’s been getting a variation of that on every report card from every teacher since kindergarten, except for the year his mom died. The year Stiles stopped talking because he had nothing to say and he was afraid that every time he opened his mouth it wouldn’t be words that would come out anyway, but some long-drawn miserable howl that would put a wolf to shame. The words came back, in time. Stiles uses them to drown the silence, to fill the hole inside him. He talks and talks and talks because he’s half afraid of silence and the things he might hear if he listens to it.

Like his mom’s rasping breath and the beep of the heart monitor that punctuated all their last hours together. That sound he’d hated so much, each tiny beep a sharp jab into his nerves, until it was gone and there was nothing left but that horrible fucking silence.

It’s been wrapped around him ever since, trying to choke him. He talks to kill the silence, to smother the fear. Words are his only protection.

“I…” Stiles can’t tear his gaze away from Derek’s mouth. It’s downturned. Nothing new there. He probably traded the ability to smile in some supernatural deal with a demon to get the most threatening eyebrows in the history of the universe. Also, that stubble is totally working for him. And those cheekbones deserve some sort of recognition for everything they’re doing. God. Again, how is the universe at all fair when people as hot as this are allowed to exist? People that have all the blood rushing straight out of Stiles’s brain and down to his dick so fast that it’s possible he could pass out. “I know I do. Talk too much. Always have. When I was three I almost drowned at my kiddy swimming lesson because I kept trying to talk underwater. My dad says I was trying to talk to the mermaids, even though I’m pretty sure there were none in the Beacon Hills Municipal Pool.” He shrugs. “Although, Beacon Hills. Anything’s possible, right?”

Derek’s eyes narrow further. “Stiles.”

“What?”

Derek reaches down and grips the ends of Stiles’s comforter and, in one sharp yank, pulls it off him.

It’s unexpected.

It’s cold.

Stiles’s erection is totally right _there_.

“Dude!” Stiles pulls his legs up. “What the _hell_?” There’s a tirade ready to be unleashed, just on the tip of his tongue, but it dies in a single fucking heartbeat when Derek drops the comforter onto the floor, and kneels forward so that his knees are on the end of Stiles’s bed. Stiles can feel the way the mattress dips toward him like his whole world is about to tip. “Derek, what are you…”

Derek is on his bed. Walking up it on his knees, and how the hell can he make a move like that seem smooth and sinuous? Then his hands are closing around Stiles’s ankles, and he’s pulling his legs straight.

Stiles has no words for this. Apart from “Uh.” Which, while although not a word, Stiles likes to think contains multitudes. He compiles a short list of things _uh_ translates to in his head, in a vain attempt to distract himself from what’s happening—what _is_ happening?—and stop himself from flailing:

_Derek, you appear to be touching me. Why is that?_

_I find this physical contact confusing. It feels sexual, but if it’s some weird wolf thing please let me know now before I completely embarrass myself._

_Derek Hale is_ touching _me!_

_Please don’t stop. Wherever this is going, please don’t stop._

_Oh fuck, I really, really want to come._

With his legs pulled straight, there’s no hiding Stiles’s erection. Stiles jams his fists on either side of his thighs. The instinct to cover his dick is strong…and totally pointless. Because not only is he sure that Derek can smell how aroused he is, Derek’s also staring down at the way Stiles’s erection is tenting his pajama pants and that mouth of his, the mouth that never smiles, twitches at one corner as though he really, really likes what he sees.

_Fuck._

All this time when Stiles wanted Derek but totally pretended that he didn’t, is it possible that Derek wanted him too? Because that would be awesome. And, in Stiles’s history, totally unprecedented. Love is so much easier when it’s unrequited. He can obsess over it, and let it consume him, but he doesn’t have to bring anyone else in. He doesn’t have to complicate things by talking about feelings, by laying them out like cards from a deck and hoping that they match another person’s. Maybe he should use Scott for this. Have him turn up to whatever condemned property Derek has moved into with a note in his pocket:

_Stiles likes you._

_Tick the box._

_a)_ _You like Stiles too._

 _b)_ _You think Stiles is gross._

 _c)_ _Stiles who?_

Then at least he’d know, right? Although the way Derek is crawling up him, his heated gaze fixed on Stiles’s deer-in-a-headlight wide eyes, should kind of give him a clue. It might not be chocolates and flowers on Valentine’s Day, but it’s definitely sexual.

And Stiles is over the fucking moon about that.

Terrified, but also over the fucking moon.

He moistens his lips with his tongue. “Uh.”

Derek looms above him, planting his hands on either side of Stiles’s shoulders. He’s hot. And not just aesthetically. He’s strong enough to hold himself above Stiles without touching, and he’s still warmer than the comforter he wrenched away. And that is definitely the start of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Not so talkative now, huh?”

Oh, okay, sure, whereas Derek suddenly wants to play Twenty Questions. Stiles juts out his chin, stubborn, and not-so-secretly hoping to bring their faces, their lips, closer together. “You think? I bet I could talk for hours yet. Actually, I’m hoping you’ll find a way to shut me up.” He leers.

Oh god. That’s probably his first and last attempt at sexy banter, and it’s incredibly lame. Maybe Stiles isn’t one of those guys who can do suggestive and flirty. Maybe he should just stop trying and go straight for unambiguous and filthy: _Fuck me hard with your massive cock, Derek._ Except there is no way in hell he can say that with a straight face, is there? God. Maybe he should have spent less time watching porn, because however informative it’s been in so many other ways it’s not really great with the dialogue.

But instead of rolling his eyes, Derek’s almost-smile ratchets up a fraction and he leans closer. His breath is hot on Stiles’s face, and Stiles tries hard not to wonder if he’s torn any rabbits, or worse, apart lately, but before he can ask Derek lowers his weight onto Stiles, and _holyfuckingchristballs_ Stiles can feel his dick. Hot, heavy, _big_ , pressing against his abdomen.

Stiles doesn’t know what’s more shocking. The feel of Derek’s dick against him, or the honest-to-Jebus smile that Derek gives him when he says “ _Uh!”_ again. Okay, so not exactly his finest moment, but Stiles doesn’t care because he’s pretty damn sure his finest moment is about three or four minutes away. Or however long it takes Derek to get out of his jeans. Maybe even five minutes, because those things look like they’ve been painted on.

Not that Stiles is complaining.

“Nothing to say again?”

“To be fair,” Stiles manages, “there is currently no blood in my brain.”

“Mmm.” Derek grinds gently against him. “I noticed that.”

Of course Derek can say something like that without sounding creepy or ridiculous. He’s Derek Fucking Hale. He’s perfect. The asshole.

Stiles lifts his hands to Derek’s shoulders— _I’m touching Derek Hale!_ —and tries not to shiver at the overwhelming rush of arousal that lights him up from the inside. Because this is not some bodice ripper and he’s not some innocent little maiden whose body will ultimately be seduced into betraying her. No way. He and his body are absolutely on the same page here. They want to get fucked. They might not be experienced, but they have enthusiasm on their side and surely that has to count for something. Stiles is ready to throw himself into this wholeheartedly.

Derek dips his face closer to Stiles’s, and rubs his cheek against his. The rasp of stubble against his face makes Stiles’s breath catch in his throat. Holy. Fucking. Hell. He wriggles, parting his legs slightly, hoping to encourage Derek to push into the space between them, so that Stiles can hook his legs around him and eliminate any distance between them. Derek makes a growling sound deep in his throat, a soft note of warning maybe, and Stiles’s skin prickles into goose bumps.

“Did you just _growl_ at me?”

“Slow down.” Derek glares at him. “It’s not a race, Stiles.”

Lucky, because Stiles has a feeling he’s a sprint guy, whereas Derek could turn this thing into a marathon if he wanted.

“Okay.”

“If we’re doing this, we’re doing it right.”

Stiles has no idea how to respond to that. He’ll bow to Derek’s undoubted experience, he guesses, and actually try and follow instructions for once, except… unease uncurls in his gut. Except Derek hardly sounds exactly enthusiastic, so what the hell? Why does Stiles suddenly get the incredibly ugly feeling that whatever is going on here isn’t exactly mutual? He shifts his hands, and pushes Derek up. “Wait.”

Derek stares down at him.

“Okay, so why are you here again?” His heartbeat stutters nervously, and he hates that Derek can hear it.

Derek gets that look that Stiles hates. It’s the one that looks like a cross between painful constipation and the rising urge to kill fluffy kittens. It’s Brooding Derek, and he wears it less attractively than he probably thinks. Slightly. His eyebrows knit together as he scowls. “I’m here because you wanted me here.”

“Okay.” Stiles regrets starting this conversation when Derek leans back, and the cool night air rushes in to replace his stolen warmth. “Um, wait, what?”

Constipation, definitely. “You didn’t want to die a virgin.”

Oh.

_Ouch._

Seriously fucking ouch.

Stiles pulls his legs up again, and Derek clambers off the bed. He stands there, glowering at the wall just above Stiles’s head.

“Oh, wow, um.” Stiles scrubs his knuckles over his head and tries to ignore the fact that it feels like Derek has just ripped him open and pulled his lungs out of his chest. Not his heart. His lungs, because he can hardly breathe. “Look at you. I mean, seriously, _look_ at you. Guys like you shouldn’t even exist outside of magazines, where guys like me can look at you and believe it’s ninety-five percent airbrushing. But when you have the audacity to go and exist in the actual world, you don’t even notice guys like me, and I’m pretty sure I’m gonna regret this for the rest of my life, but here goes.” He sucks in a deep breath. “Derek, I don’t want to be a pity fuck. You’re totally hot, and I’m, well, look at me, but it turns out I have just enough self-respect to turn you down.” A startled, choked laugh escapes him. “Self-respect that I’m sure will be self-recrimination by tomorrow, but hey. So, you know, thanks and stuff, but I’d rather save myself for someone who actually has the tiniest amount of respect for me, okay?”

Derek still isn’t looking at him.

“So, yeah.” Stiles’s throat stings. Humiliation doesn’t feel so great after all, it turns out. “Thanks anyway.”

_Thanks a fucking lot for that kick in the ego._

Derek moves so quickly that Stiles isn’t sure he even sees him leave. One second he’s standing by the window again, his leather jacket in his hand, and the next second he’s gone.

Totally gone.

Stiles doesn’t cry.

He decides to save that for if he really does get a My Little Pony journal.

He gets out of bed, picks up his comforter, and closes the window.


	2. Chapter 2

Unrequited love is one thing. Stiles has been dealing with that since forever. _Forever._ Well, since third grade. He’s gotten really good at it. He knows the rules. But unrequited love and unconsummated lust together? That just sucks. It sucks balls. At least he can moon over Lydia from afar. Derek Hale though… Derek Fucking Hale was _this_ close to getting into Stiles’s pants, which, frankly, lends itself to a whole new level of heartbreak.

_“You didn’t want to die a virgin.”_

Stiles didn’t want to be anyone’s pity fuck either.

He still thinks of Derek when he jerks off.

But at least he’s got enough pride left to hate himself for it, so that’s something, right?

“Something you want to talk about?” his dad asks at breakfast, three days after Derek climbed out of Stiles’s bedroom window, taking his leather jacket, his scowl, and Stiles’s dignity with him. 

Stiles drops his spoon into his cereal. “No. Absolutely not. Not ever, no.”

He dad sighs over the rim of his coffee cup. “Are you sure?”

Stiles sticks his finger in his cereal and dredges through it searching for his spoon. “Dad, I have never been more sure of anything in my life. I have so much clarity right now that my mind is focused like a laser.”

His dad raises his eyebrows. “A laser, huh?”

Stiles pulls his spoon out of his cereal, spraying Lucky Charms and milk all over the table. “A freakin’ laser!”

“Uh huh. And you’re wearing your hoodie inside out _because_?”

“Laser,” Stiles mumbles.

“Hmmm.” His dad opens his newspaper.

Stiles shovels Lucky Charms around his bowl. He’s not going to talk to his dad about this. He’s smart. He can figure this out on his own. Actually, there’s nothing to figure out, is there? Derek made an offer, Stiles turned him down, no need to obsess about it. He doesn’t even know why he’s still thinking about it, or why it still hurts. Stiles didn’t know he had enough pride for it to bruise like that.

“Okay,” he says at last, staring at the eddies he’s making in his milk. “So there’s this…this _bee_.” He looks up quickly, and that had better not be a smile his dad is trying to hide.

“A bee. Okay.”

“And this bee is really hot, but he’s also kind of a dick.”

His dad’s face grows serious.

Stiles studies his cereal again. “Anyway, we were kind of, _um_ , we were kind of doing some stuff, and—”

“Stuff?”

“It was all PG-13, I swear.” His face is burning though, because all he can do is remember the feel of Derek’s cock pressing against his hip, and _holyfuckinghell_ he wants that again. Not with Derek though. Nuh uh. He wants it with some other guy who’s not a _total_ douchebag. “But then he said something.”

“What?” His dad’s voice is calm, but Stiles is pretty sure that Angry Papa Bear is just under the surface. Stiles hasn’t seen Angry Papa Bear since seventh grade when Casey McDermott smacked Stiles in the face with a skateboard. His dad had picked him up from the hospital and driven him straight to Casey’s house where, Stiles was sure, if Casey hadn’t immediately broken down into tears and started wailing an apology, Angry Papa Bear would have torn him limb from limb.

“He said, um.” Stiles needs to paraphrase here, because there are certain truths his dad doesn’t need to know. Like werewolves, and the danger Stiles gets into on regular occasions, and how three nights ago he came _this_ close to getting Derek Hale’s dick up his ass. “I kind of thought he liked me, but it turns out he was making out with me just because I hadn’t done it before. Like, you know, he was doing me a favor or something.”

His dad sighs again. “Stiles. You deserve better than that.”

Stiles shrugs, and looks up. “That’s what I thought, but I’m kind of a loser.”

“Bullshit.”

“No, listen. I know I’m smart and funny and all that stuff, but you and Scott are literally the only other people in the world who know that, and that’s okay. I mean, it sucks, high school sucks, but college is going to be awesome, because guys like me come into our own in college, right?” He stirs his cereal. “I mean, I hope that’s true.”

“You’re a good kid, Stiles,” his dad says steadily. “You’re a great kid.”

Sure, but he’s not a _popular_ kid. When it comes to high school currency, Stiles has nothing. He jabs at his cereal again. Clearly his dad is not the person to be having this conversation with, if they can’t both agree, at least objectively, that Stiles is a hopeless loser. “Thanks, Dad.”

“Okay,” his dad says, his tone wary, his gaze narrow, like he’s not quite ready to let this go. “A _great_ kid.”

“I heard you the first time,” Stiles mumbles, and they’re totally not having a moment here, but if his dad hugs him a little harder and for a little longer than usual before he heads out the door for work, well, Stiles isn’t going to make a big thing of it.

 

***

 

School sucks.

Scott is as oblivious as ever, wrapped up with Allison in the cozy little world they inhabit between their regularly scheduled break-ups. Stiles detests their happiness.

Class sucks. Harris is such an asshole, and he really, really doesn’t like Stiles. The feeling is mutual. 

Lacrosse practice sucks. Seriously, why does Finstock make him do so much training when they both know he’ll just end up warming the bench at the next game anyway? Stiles spends most of the hour trying to catch his breath. Once or twice he looks across the field to the line of trees, remembering when Derek used to lurk there threateningly, like something out of an urban legend where it turns out the _thump thump thump_ is the crazy psycho bashing the boyfriend’s severed head against the roof of the girlfriend’s car or whatever. So many of those campfire stories have such logic fails in them that Stiles is usually too busy pointing out the plot holes to be scared.

Also, this is Beacon Hills. There’s more to be scared of than escapees from Eichen House. Stiles wishes he didn’t know that for a fact.

Whatever.

He’s not thinking about monsters and things that want to rip him apart. And he’s definitely not thinking about the wolf who always appears out of nowhere to rescue him. And he’s absolutely not thinking about his eyes, or his snarl, or the solid wall of muscle that was pressing against—

“Bilinski!” Finstock bellows.

Oh yeah, he’s supposed to be thinking about lacrosse. He turns toward the coach, loses track of where all his limbs are, manages to trip over his crosse and lands on his ass on the field, and how is that even possible?

“Dude,” Danny says as he helps him to his feet, shaking his head. “ _Dude._ ”

“You suck, Stilinski!” someone else yells, and most of the team laughs and hollers and joins in, and suddenly it’s a chant, echoing up and down the field: “You suck, Stilinski!”

Which is right when he happens to look at the trees again. And there’s Derek, standing there with his hands shoved into the pockets of his leather jacket, looking all tall, dark and brooding.

“You suck, Stilinski!” Jackson slams his shoulder into him, almost sending him to the ground again. He catches himself awkwardly, muscles wrenching. When he looks up again, Derek’s gone.

Fuck his life. Seriously.

 

***

 

The worst thing—well, apart from his total abject humiliation—is that Stiles can’t exactly ignore Derek. There are like half a dozen people tops who form the only line of defense against the evil supernatural shit that goes down in Beacon Hills, and, of that half a dozen or so people, Stiles doesn’t actually trust any of them. 

Except Scott. He trusts Scott. Scott is his bro.

And Derek. A little bit. Because Derek might be a dick, and a douchebag, and Stiles suspects he actually gets off on withholding valuable information when it comes to supernatural shit, but he’s at least ninety percent sure that Derek is one of the good guys. Well, eighty percent. Maybe sixty-five. But no lower. The point is, Stiles kind of trusts him.

He trusts Derek a lot more than he trusts any of Derek’s pack, or the Argents, and what the hell is going on with Deaton? Stiles is completely over the cryptic and mysterious shtick he’s got going on. Deaton makes Derek seem like an over-sharer.

So, as much as he wants to, Stiles can’t ignore Derek.

He tries. He succeeds even, for about two days, but this is Beacon Hills.

He gets the text message at three in the morning: _What do you know about the body in the woods?_

He squints at the screen for a moment, then sends back: _Who is this?_

The answer takes a minute or two to come through. Long enough that Stiles is already dozing again when his phone buzzes. _This is Derek._

Derek knows how to text people? Wow. He could almost pass as a real boy. Stiles scratches his belly and sends back: _Who gave you my number?_

_Scott._

Of course he did.

“Thanks, Scott,” Stiles mutters, and then remembers that as far as Scott knows there’s no reason Derek shouldn’t have his number. That weird crush that culminated in the most humiliating felt-another-guy’s-boner-and-almost-had-sex moment of his life? Never happened. No way.

He has no idea how to respond to Derek’s text, so he doesn’t. A few seconds later, Derek texts again: _What do you know about the body in the woods?_

Stiles yawns at the screen. _There’s a body in the woods?_

_Are you being sarcastic?_

Stiles can only imagine what Derek’s eyebrows are doing at the moment. He sends back: _No._

He’s being no more sarcastic than his default setting, anyway. He’s always a little bit sarcastic. Because otherwise, where’s the fun in anything? His dad once tried to tell him that sarcasm was the lowest form of wit. Stiles maintains that’s utter rubbish. When done right, sarcasm is a thing of majestic beauty.

He gets back: _What do you know about the body in the woods?_

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Stiles rolls his eyes at the phone, because this is getting nowhere fast. He dials Derek’s number instead, and jiggles his foot until it answers.

“Stiles?”

“Derek. No, I’m not being sarcastic, and no, I don’t know anything about a body in the woods. Want to fill me in, sourwolf?”

Dead silence.

“Derek?”

“A body’s been found,” Derek says at last, his voice more like a growl. “In the woods.”

“I picked most of that up,” Stiles informs him. “From your earlier contextual clues. Mostly, you know, that time when you asked repeatedly if I knew anything about the body in the woods.”

Silence again.

Stiles sighs. “And yes, for the record, that time it was sarcasm.”

And this time that’s definitely a growl. “I’m out by the creek, in the Preserve. The police have just pulled a body out of the water. It has no skin.”

“What?” Stiles doesn’t need that mental image. Ew. Too late. Gross. “ _What?_ ”

“I need to know what the police know. I need to know what might have done this.”

There are those damned contextual clues again. “So you have no idea?”

Silence.

It’s lucky he can text, because Derek obviously doesn’t understand how the talking part of using a phone works.

“Let me rephrase that. So _clearly_ you have no idea?”

“Fine,” Derek grinds out at last. “I have no idea. Can you get some information for me, or what?”

Stiles wishes he could say that their abortive encounter in his bedroom has made their relationship strained, and full of both awkwardness and hostility, but, sadly, they’ve always been like this. Actually, the only thing Stiles ever liked about Derek was his face. And his abs. And what little he felt of his dick. It was completely physical and it meant nothing, so why is he still thinking about it? Instead of wondering what Derek’s skin might taste like, damp with sweat under Stiles’s tongue, maybe he should be focusing more on the poor murder victim in the creek who doesn’t even have any skin left.

Again, ew.

“Yes, I’ll find out what I can.” Either his dad will bring the file home to work on and lock it in his desk drawer when he’s done looking at it—Stiles has had a spare key for years—or Stiles will go into the station and have a look there. The station’s been his second home since his mom died. It turns out even the most grumpy of cops won’t tell the kid with no mom to go and wait for his dad at home. He doesn’t exactly have free run of the place, but he’s very careful about making sure nobody’s watching when he sneaks into the records room.

“When?”

Is he even serious? Stiles’s grandmother used to tell him that manners didn’t cost anything. Apparently Derek wasn’t brought up with the same values. Of course, he _was_ raised by wolves.

“Oh, thanks, Stiles. You’re a great help, Stiles. You’re the _best_ , Stiles.” Stiles scrubs his knuckles over his forehead. “That was more sarcasm, by the way.”

“I know.” 

“Well, good for you, Derek. You’re finally getting the hang of this exchange.”

More silence.

“Okay then,” Stiles says at last. “Good talk.”

He ends the call and goes back to sleep.

 

 

***

 

Stiles leaves home early for school, and detours via the police station. His dad has been at work since he got called out last night, just before Derek texted. The note on the fridge was part apology and part promise to try and make it home in time for breakfast. By the time Stiles sees the note it’s already past breakfast, which gives him the perfect excuse to breeze into the station with a smile and a box of donuts—it’s a total cliché, but it works—and nobody even asks him what he’s doing there because, hello, donuts. There are even a few left in the box by the time Stiles gets as far as his dad’s office.

His dad isn’t there.

But the file is.

Stiles shoves a donut in his mouth and opens it up.

Okay, crime scene photographs straight off the press. Gross. Not only has something removed all the skin, but it looks like the body is half burned as well. Underneath the photographs is a preliminary report with not much in it at all. The victim is a male. Unknown name, unknown anything. Looking at the photographs again, suddenly it occurs to Stiles that there are worse things than being humiliated by Derek Fucking Hale. Like having something remove your skin and dump your body in a creek. That’s gotta suck.

There’s no autopsy report yet. It’s way too early for that.

Stiles brushes sugar off the photographs, closes the file, and leaves the office.

He takes a photograph of the leftover donuts and sends it with a text to his dad: _You snooze, you lose_.

On his way out, he gives the donuts to a deputy.

 

***

 

At school he checks his phone.

_You owe me donuts, kid._

He sends back: _I’ll make you a salad instead._

No response.

Stiles grins and shoves his phone back in his pocket.

 

***

 

Derek Hale is the king of creepiness. First he was living in the burned out remains of his family home in the middle of the woods, and now he’s living in a rundown railway depot on the bad side of town.

“Seriously,” Stiles says as he and Scott walk inside. “What next? An abandoned amusement park?”

Scott gives him a sideways look that Stiles doesn’t have time to even try to interpret right now. He’s too busy trying to avoid getting tetanus just by being here.

Derek jumps down from the rusting-out carriage. He’s wearing jeans…and nothing else. _Holychristfuckballs_. He’s been working out or something, because his abs are shining with sweat, and it should totally be gross or whatever, but Stiles wants nothing more than to _lick_ them. Really, really slowly. And repeatedly.

Derek’s holding something balled up in his fist. Damn. It’s a shirt. He shakes it out and pulls it on, and Stiles only has like half a second to admire those abs—not taking anything away from all Derek’s other muscles, though. They’re all equally impressive—before Derek gets them covered up. He glares at Stiles. “What do you know?”

Stiles knows nothing. He doesn’t know what day it is. He doesn’t know his address. He doesn’t even know his own name at the moment. Which is why Scott has to say it twice before it catches his attention.

“Stiles,” Scott says. “Stiles!”

“What? Hello, what?”

Scott gives him another weird look.

“Okay, yes, hi.” Stiles wipes his palms on his jeans. “So, yeah, I went to the station this morning and they’ve got basically nothing. There’s no ID on the victim yet.”

Derek glowers.

“The autopsy report won’t be in for a few days.”

“A few _days_?” Derek curls his lip.

“Well, yeah.” Stiles glares at him. Awkward abortive sexual encounter aside, nobody criticizes the sheriff’s department while Stiles is around. Stiles’s dad works hard. “This is Beacon Hills, not CSI Miami. So maybe, if there’s anything you’d like to contribute to this whole exchange of information thing, now would be the time. Otherwise Scott and I really need to get back to school before lunch ends, because Harris is an absolute asshole who is just itching for the chance to give me a detention and, frankly, that’d just be the icing on the fucking cake that is my week, okay?”

“Stiles, I—”

“Okay then,” Stiles says loudly. Whatever Derek’s going to say, he’s pretty sure no good can come of it. Fuck him and his stupid hot face and his stupid hot abs. “It’s been fun. See you again soon. Let’s go, Scott.”

Scott is giving him the side eye.

“Let’s go,” Stiles repeats, and fuck his life. Seriously.

He storms out of there.

 

 

***

 

When the door of the Jeep squeaks open. Stiles doesn’t look up. He’s too busy knocking his head repeatedly against the steering wheel.

“Anything you want to talk about?” Scott asks finally.

“No.” He just bets Scott’s gone all crinkly-foreheaded and squinty-eyed with concern. It’s what Scott does. But he’s not going to look, because then he’ll feel so bad for making Scott look so worried that before he knows it they’ll be talking it out. And Stiles would rather be subjected to several hours of medieval dentistry than talk about this.

“Okay,” Scott says, and then ruins it by adding: “Dude, do you have a _crush_? On _Derek_?”

Oh sweet zombie Jesus. No no no no no. He _cannot_ be that obvious. Because Scott—Scott is oblivious to pretty much everything that occurs around him, unless it has something to do with Allison. Which means if Scott knows, Stiles might as well have taken out a front-page advertisement in the Beacon Hills Herald. He bumps his head against the steering wheel again.

“I mean, he’s…he’s a _dick_.”

“I know,” Stiles mumbles. He straightens up and takes a deep breath. “I _know_ , but it doesn’t mean anything, okay? It’s just a stupid dumb thing. It’s not like a—a _declaration_ or anything, okay?”

Scott looks worried. “Okay.”

Stiles turns the key in the ignition. “This is not me coming out.”

“Okay.”

Stiles shoots another glance at him. “Because, FYI, if I was coming out, I’d do it in _style_ , you know? With a kickass party. With a DJ, and strobe lights, and beautiful people. And a shitload of balloon animals.”

Scott’s mouth twitches as he tries to hide a smile. “Balloon animals?”

“Fuck, yes. Balloon animals.” Stiles puts the Jeep into gear and pulls out onto the street. “Balloon animals are awesome.”

Scott beams at him. “They _are_ awesome.”

And that’s what Stiles loves most about Scott. Scott’s his bro. If Stiles wants to spend the entire drive back to school talking about balloon animals and not about skinless corpses and unexpected gay crushes, then that’s what they’ll do, because Scott’s got his back.

Always.

 

***

 

 

Stiles’s dad has been and gone by the time he gets home. There’s an apology tacked to the fridge and a load of washing in the dryer. Stiles eats cereal for dinner. In his underwear. On the couch. Because why the hell not? He’s earned it. He sits and scowls about Derek for a while, wonders if he has the inclination and the energy to jerk off, and then decides to pass for now. He’s too tired.

He watches a movie instead, while he works on his chemistry homework. Then he gives up on both the movie and the homework, and goes upstairs to get on his computer. He’s thinking of the crime scene photographs, and wondering what sort of monster tries to burn the corpse it just flayed. Seems kind of unusual.

And Stiles really wishes he could go back in time to when everything about the supernatural was unusual. Like, _everything,_ and not just the bits relating to corpse desecration. This is not a normal life Stiles is living. Shouldn’t there be some sort of karmic recompense for all the shit he has to put up with? Meanwhile, he’s not even getting laid. The universe sucks balls.

He texts Scott while he gets his Google-fu on. Scott is with Allison, so his answers are sporadic and mostly random strings of letters.

Even Scott’s getting laid.

Thanks for nothing, universe.

He stays up too late, finds out nothing, and gets a whole four hours of sleep before his alarm goes off in the morning. Four hours of very disturbed sleep, where he is alternatively being pursued by faceless monsters through the woods, or making out with Derek in the back of his Camaro. The second option is definitely the best, even if it does lead to Stiles waking up to discover himself attempting to violate his pillow in unspeakable ways.

“Ugh.” He rolls out of bed and staggers to the bathroom and showers. No shower gel and Special Private Time this morning. He’s too tired for that. Caffeine first. Then breakfast. Then Adderall. Then, hopefully, he’ll feel like a functioning human being.

He heads back to his bedroom to get dressed.

He checks his dad’s bedroom on the way downstairs. The door is open. The bed hasn’t been slept in. Sometimes Stiles feels like he and his dad are just strangers occupying the same space, at different times. Sometimes they go days without any contact at all except text messages and notes stuck to the refrigerator. Stiles misses him.

He hates his dad’s job. It’s complicated. He’s proud of his dad for doing the job that he does but, even before he knew about all the weird shit going down in Beacon Hills, Stiles hated it. There are too many variables, too much that can go wrong. He can’t watch those TV shows where routine traffic stops turn into tragedies, where suddenly there is a struggle, and a gun, and a dashboard camera that keeps recording as some cop falls out of shot.

Stuff like that gives him more nightmares than any bloodthirsty supernatural creature ever can.

The thing is though, he can’t imagine his dad doing any other job. He’s just…he’s just so fucking terrified he knows how it will end. That one morning, just like this one, one of his dad’s deputies will turn up with his hat in his hands, and he’ll open his mouth and the words that fall out will rip the universe into so many pieces that Stiles will never be able to put it back together again.

Ever since his mom died, a part of Stiles has been waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Stiles has just turned the coffee maker on when he hears the car pulling up out the front of the house. He knows the sound of that engine. His dad’s cruiser.

The weight he didn’t even know he was carrying lifts from his shoulders, and by the time his dad walks into the kitchen Stiles is wearing a grin.

“Breakfast?”

His dad gives him a weary smile. “It’d better not be a tofu omelet.”

“Firstly, that was one time, and it wasn’t that bad!”

His dad snorts. “It was pretty bad!”

Yeah, it was, but only because Stiles needs more practice with tofu.

“Come on, kid. I’m taking you to the diner for pancakes. Okay?”

Okay? It’s more than okay. Fuck tofu, obviously. Stiles is having pancakes!

 

***

 

“So,” his dad says as they’re waiting for their pancakes. “How are things?”

Stiles shrugs, and taps his fingers on the laminate table. Then he checks the pockets of his hoodie to make sure he remembered his Adderall, because he’s feeling a little bit frayed as the edges, and he can’t remember if he took any yesterday, so he’s pretty sure he’ll be bouncing off the walls any minute now. He finds a nickel in the same pocket as the Adderall, and brings it out to spin on the table in their booth.

“Stiles.”

“Um, what?”

His dad is wearing the same patient face he’s been wearing for most of Stiles’s life. “How are things?”

“Oh, good, I guess.” He straightens up when the waitress brings over his strawberry milkshake.

“Hmm.” His dad confiscates the nickel.

Stiles swallows his Adderall down with a mouthful of milkshake. He thinks about Derek, and his stupid hot face and his stupid hot abs. “How old were you when you lost your virginity?”

For a second Stiles thinks his dad is having a stroke, but then he manages to pull himself together enough to choke out a few words. Those words do not answer Stiles’s question. “Oh Jesus Christ.”

Stiles chews on his straw and waits. 

John closes his eyes briefly, sighs, and then regroups. “Is there any particular reason you’re asking me that question?”

“Is there any particular reason you’re not telling me the answer?”

“You’re sixteen,” his dad says firmly. “That’s underage.”

“And you’re avoiding the question.” Stiles narrows his eyes. “How old were you?”

John sighs again. “I was seventeen, okay? I’d just turned seventeen. But you, young man, are waiting until you’re eighteen.”

Stiles opens his mouth to point out the double standard at play here.

“No!” His dad holds up a finger. “Not a word. Being a hypocrite is the only way people who were once teenagers can be parents without going out of their damn minds.”

Stiles is distracted when the waitress arrives at their booth with their pancakes. Pancakes! Stiles could take all the Adderall in the world and still be distracted by pancakes. Pancakes are right up there with Derek Fucking Hale’s abs.

“You shouldn’t be eating pancakes,” he says with a mouth full of blueberry goodness.

“I can’t understand a word you’re saying,” his dad lies, and digs in.

Stiles swallows. “Pancakes are not a very healthy breakfast.”

“You’re eating them too.”

“I don’t have cholesterol!”

“Everyone has cholesterol. Mine is just a little high.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. He’s pretty sure his dad knows that the only reason he’s always on his case about his diet is that he’s scared, but his dad has never called him out about it. He lets Stiles bully him into eating mostly healthy food, and counts the occasional pancake breakfast as some sort of epic win. And bacon as the Second Coming of Christ. But mostly, he lets Stiles have this. This one tiny thing that he can control in a universe where there are no certainties.

Stiles decides to save the lecture on cholesterol for later, when his dad doesn’t look so wrecked, and shovels more pancake into his mouth. It’s so freaking _good_. “Have you actually had any sleep in the past two days?”

“I’ve caught a few hours here and there.”

“Here and there meaning your desk and your car?”

“My desk and the morgue.”

“Ew.”

His dad snorts. “The waiting room, Stiles, not the drawers.”

“Again, ew. Thanks for the visual.”

John snorts again. “I think we’ve both given each other unwanted visuals this morning.”

Stiles grins. “Sorry about that.”

“You’re not sorry at all.”

Stiles can’t argue with that. “So, how are you doing, really?”

“Really?” His dad sighs. “I’m tired, kiddo. And this case? I’ve got nothing.”

“The paper said it was a suspected animal attack.” The paper always says they’re suspected animal attacks. The mountain lion population around Beacon Hills has been severely maligned in the past few years. Severely.

“Huh.”

“So, um, so it’s not?” Stiles tries to sound at least a little surprised.

His dad sets his fork down and rubs his forehead. “I don’t want you going into the Preserve until this is all done, okay?”

“Dad?”

John looks around to make sure nobody’s listening before he answers. He leans forward and lowers his voice. “No, it’s not an animal. It’s some sicko, okay? Some sicko who took the time to remove the victim’s skin before trying to set fire to the body to destroy evidence.”

Stiles’s widens his eyes.

“Shit.” His dad’s brow creases. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have told you any of that.”

“No, that’s okay. You need someone to talk about this stuff with, right? To like, get it off your chest?”

“And burden my sixteen-year-old son with it instead, sure.”

“Dad, c’mon. I’ve been both desensitized and conditioned to violence by video games, remember? Don’t you watch Fox News?”

“Not when I can help it.”

Stiles snorts.

“Anyway.” John picks up his fork again and stabs a piece of blueberry pancake. “We’ll get the guy.”

Stiles feels bad for doubting him. If it really was some human sicko, sure, he’d believe his dad would get the guy. But this is Beacon Hills. Stiles has the feeling this falls outside his dad’s area of expertise.

“So there’s no, um, no forensic evidence?”

John checks his watch. “I should know the answer to that in a few hours. All we’ve got so far is a body with no ID, and the craziest witness statement I’ve ever heard.”

“A witness?” Stiles’s heartbeat quickens. This is new.

John shakes his head. “Says he was walking home—staggering home, more like—and took a shortcut through the Preserve where, and get this, he saw a pair of eyes in some mist right where our victim was later found.”

“ _Red_ eyes?” God. Not another crazy fucking alpha, please. 

“What?” His dad gives him a strange look. “Green eyes, actually. Green, disembodied eyes. So, of course, he thinks it’s _aliens_.”

“Aliens?” Aliens had better not be fucking real. Because Stiles really has no time for that on top of everything else. “Seriously?”

“This is your brain,” his dad mutters. “This is your brain on meth.”

Stiles grins, but meanwhile his brain has seized on two things his dad said and is currently backtracking through all the shit he read last night, because those two things have snagged on something in his memory. Green disembodied eyes, and mist.

“Weirdest damn statement I ever took.” John digs back into his pancakes.

“Weird,” Stiles murmurs.

 _Weird_.

Holy fuck.

The Čudnovata. A Croatian word meaning The Weird. A shapeshifter. Sometimes a person, sometimes a cloud of mist, sometimes anything it fucking wants to be, but with one thing it can’t ever hide: its glowing green eyes.

Fuck yes.

He’s not going to jump the gun before he’s checked all the details—and he’s not going to cut and run on breakfast with his dad—but this feels right. This feels like a fit.

He’s focused now. He’s figured this out. He’s cracked the case wide open.

He puts his hand into his pocket and curls his fingers around the blister pack of pills.

This is his brain.

He grins again.

This is his brain on Adderall.

 

 

***

 

Stiles ditches school. His first class is Econ anyway, and he and Finstock can probably both do with a break from each other. Really, he’s doing the guy a favor. He drives to the old railway depot instead.

“Derek? Hey, Derek?”

Because a quick Google search has revealed that yes, it’s the Čudnovata. Because not only can it be a pair of glowing green eyes in mist, it also flays the victim and roasts the body alive. The fire that his dad thinks was to destroy evidence? No. Čudnovata barbecue time.

So far Stiles hasn’t been able to find anything on how to kill a Čudnovata, but maybe Deaton will have something in his files, or the Argents will. Teamwork, for the win. Shakiest team in the entire history of teamwork, with worse communication skills that the guys who built the Tower of Babel, but, growling and posturing aside, Stiles figures they can put their differences aside for the greater good. Most of the time, anyway. Well, _some_ of the time, and Stiles chooses to believe that this will be one of those times.

“Derek?”

The railway depot is empty.

Stiles sighs and pulls his phone out. He texts Derek: _Where are you? I have info._

He waits around for a while, but doesn’t get an answer.

Great.

Just great.

Who the hell is he supposed to show off to now?

 

***

 

“You suck, Stilinski!”

Lacrosse is the same as always.

 

***

 

He texts Scott after dinner: _Have you heard from Derek yet?_

It’s a few minutes until the response comes through: _No._

Stiles doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do. It’s not unusual for Derek to disappear off the radar for days at a time. It’s all part of that ridiculous mysterious persona he cultivates, after all. But, come on. He asked for information, and Stiles actually has some, and the least Derek can do is make himself available to hear it.

“Asshole,” Stiles tells his phone, scrolling through the contacts until he hits _Sourwolf._ He sends another text: _Seriously, WTF are you?_

He’s a little worried as well. Not that Derek can’t look after himself at all, but—oh, who the hell is he kidding? Of course Derek can’t look after himself. He’s so determined to drown in his own deep well of man pain that he wouldn’t ask for help if he was on fire.

Bad example, probably.

Point is, Derek doesn’t ask for help. Because he’s a brooding, mysterious bad boy.

And also man pain.

Stiles grabs the keys to his Jeep and heads out.

 

***

 

“Stilinski,” Isaac says, and his mouth curls in a cruel smile. Isaac is on the lacrosse team, and Stiles has no doubt that he’s part of the You Suck Stilinski Cheer Squad. He’s one of Derek’s betas, and no way in hell has Stiles spent time wondering how close they got when Derek bit him, and he totally doesn’t get turned on by that whenever he thinks of it. Because Isaac probably didn’t at all whimper, trembling, and so what if he looks like a pre-Raphaelite wet dream with those curls and that mouth? That has nothing to do with anything. Stiles isn’t going there. No he is not. 

“I need to talk to Derek.”

Isaac gestures. “He’s not here.”

“No kidding.” Stiles peers around the depot anyway. Why the hell does Derek even live here? Oh, that’s right. Man pain. “Do you know where he is?”

Isaac sits down in an old lopsided recliner that looks like it’s been rescued from a dumpster. He picks up a packet of chips and rips it open. “No.”

There’s a weird noise coming from the old railway car. Kind of metal on metal. Sort of a dull thumping. And then a growling.

Isaac crunches on a chip and grins. “But sometimes he goes to his old house. When he gets sick of Boyd and Erica making too much noise.”

Sweet zombie Jesus.

Stiles’s face burns.

He _knew_ Erica and Boyd were fucking. He totally knew it. Because everyone is getting laid except Stiles. He just didn’t think they’d be doing it quite so loudly.

“Okay then,” he says, backing away and almost tripping over something. Oh, his own feet. Great.

Isaac’s grin gets wider. The asshole.

“I’m just gonna…” Stiles makes the universal gesture for ‘Well, this is awkward’ and bolts. Behind him, he can hear Isaac laughing.

 

***

 

Stiles hates the Hale house. He hates it enough during the day, but at night it’s even creepier.

He hates seeing the burned out skeleton of it, and knowing what happened to the people in the basement. He hates knowing what’s buried under the floorboards. And mostly he hates the way that Derek haunts the place like a ghost, because he might be a total douchecanoe, but nobody deserves what happened to him.

Derek’s waiting for him on the sagging front porch when Stiles arrives. It’s impossible to surprise a werewolf. Derek probably heard his Jeep coming from miles away.

“Stiles,” he says, his brows drawing together.

“Dude, I’ve been texting you all day. Why the hell didn’t you reply?”

“I lost my phone.”

Stiles stomps up the steps. “And you couldn’t find it with your supernatural sense of smell, oh wolfy one?”

Derek gives him the side eye. “I lost it at the bottom of the lake.”

“Why were you even—” Stiles throws his arms up. “Ugh. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

“What do you want, Stiles?”

“I know what it is! The thing that killed the guy.”

Derek’s gaze sharpens. It could cut diamonds, probably. “What?”

Stiles opens the browser on his phone. “It’s the Čudnovata. I’m probably saying that wrong. It’s Croatian. It means The Weird. Which, you have to admit, is a totally cool name.”

“Stiles.”

“Right. Okay. Well, it’s a shapeshifter, and it can be anything, Derek. Anything. I mean, it puts you guys and your alpha and beta forms to shame. This thing can be a person, or a cloud, or anything. _Anything._ ”

“I get it.” Derek’s voice is dry. “Anything.”

If Stiles didn’t know better, he could almost be mistaken for thinking Derek has a sense of humor. “Well, it’s pretty cool, right? For a skin-eating monster.”

“It eats the skin?”

“I don’t actually know. It roasts and eats the body, but it removes the skin first. Maybe it’s watching its diet. Except, get this. It didn’t eat the body by the creek. Maybe it got disturbed or something!”

“By what?”

“I don’t know. Because I haven’t actually found out how to kill this thing yet, but maybe Deaton or the Argents—”

Derek glowers.

Stiles sighs. “Well, we can try Deaton first, obviously.”

Derek continues glowering.

Stiles shakes his head. What the hell did he expect? That Derek would _thank_ him for figuring this out? Derek wouldn’t thank him if he offered him his first-born child. Which is a bad example, probably, because who would thank anyone for the unexpected gift of a baby?

And great. Now he’s in a weird place where he’s imagining him and Derek and a baby. Because this crush wasn’t bad enough when it was all about fucking. Now it’s gone somewhere even more excruciatingly humiliating.

Shit. Why is Stiles holding the baby in his imaginary family tableau? Is he the _mom_? Fuck his life, and fuck his subconscious most of all.

He is sixteen years old. He does _not_ want a baby with Derek Hale.

Or with _anyone_.

“Oh my god,” he mutters. “Okay, whatever, I’m out of here. Good luck with the Čudnovata. When you get a new phone, text me and let me know how it goes.” He stomps down the steps, digging in his pocket for his keys.

“Stiles!”

He stops, turns. “What? Seriously, can we _not_ talk this out, please? I’ve been pissy with you, and, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to let it get in the way of our already awkward working relationship, okay? I’ll keep helping you out when you need, and you can keep slamming me into walls and steering wheels, and we won’t ever talk about that whole pity fuck thing again. Deal?”

Derek is staring over his shoulder.

“Fine, okay. It’s like talking to a brick. Dude, I don’t even know why I _care_ if you respect me or not, because guess what? Scott’s right. You _are_ a dick.”

“Stiles! Get behind me. _Now_.”

Stiles feels like he’s been doused with icy water.

Oh fuck.

He swallows, and turns to look behind him.

A gray mist is creeping slowly into the clearing.

Oh god. It has _eyes._ Green glowing eyes.

Stiles stumbles back up the steps. Derek grips him by the shoulder and pulls him behind him.

“Oh, Jesus.” All Stiles can see are those crime scene photographs, that half-burned body with no skin. His dad told him to stay out of the Preserve. He’ll blame himself, probably, for not being there for Stiles. “Oh fuck.”

Derek growls, and usually Stiles feels pretty good about having a werewolf on his side in a fight, because werewolves are made entirely of muscles, claws, teeth, and bloodlust. They’re the scariest motherfuckers Stiles has ever seen, and Stiles gets to stand beside them. Usually that boosts his courage.

But not now.

Because what good are muscles and claws and teeth against _mist_?

They’re going to die.

 


	3. Chapter 3

“ _You have reached the Beacon Hills Animal Clinic. Our office is closed at the moment. If you have an emergency, please hold the line. Your call will be transferred.”_

Tinny music. Greensleeves.

“Oh fuck. Come on!” Stiles lets Derek drag him inside the house. “Closing the door won’t stop mist, you know, Derek!”

“I know that, Stiles!”

Why is it always fucking Greensleeves? Greensleeves makes Stiles think of the ice cream truck which, okay, is better than thinking of impending death, but also unnecessarily cruel: Want an ice cream, Stiles? Too bad, because you’re about to get flayed and roasted and eaten instead.

“Dr. Alan Deaton speaking.”

“Doc! It’s Stiles! Derek and I seriously need your help right now, like immediately!” Is that mist he can see seeping under the door? Or is his increasing panic making him see things?

“Stiles?” Deaton’s voice sharpens. “What’s going on?”

“Čudnovata! It’s a Croatian—”

“I know what it is, Stiles.”

Of course he does, praise Jebus. “How do we kill it?”

“Hmmmm. There may be a ritual of banishment. I remember seeing one somewhere.”

“Oh god. It’s here. Now. _Now!_ ”

That’s definitely mist. Thin tendrils of it slipping into the house. Underneath the door at first, then through the gaping holes where the windows used to be.

“Oh god.” Stiles can’t breathe. He closes his eyes, and grips the back of Derek’s shirt in his fist. “Please, Doc. Please.”

“Do you have any mountain ash?”

“N-no.”

“Do you have anything?”

“No!”

Deaton makes a worried sound.

Derek is backing Stiles across the floor. Stiles opens his eyes again. His first instinct is to head up the stairs. The second floor might be no more secure than down here, but it’ll buy them some time, right? Except Derek isn’t pushing him toward the stairs. Derek’s pushing him toward…

Stiles stares down at the floorboards.

They’re standing over the exact spot where they buried Peter Hale after Derek ripped his throat out. Stiles’s breath catches in his throat. Where they buried Peter Hale with enough mountain ash and wards and runes and wolfsbane to sink whatever the supernatural equivalent is of the Bismarck. He meets Derek’s gaze. Derek has beautiful fucking eyes.

“Will this work?” Stiles whispers.

Derek doesn’t answer.

“Stiles?” Deaton asks. “Will what work?”

“We’re standing, um, we’re standing where we buried Peter.”

The noise Deaton makes this time is a little less worried. But only a little. “That might hold it. The Čudnovata will feed on your fear. Don’t let it. I’ll be there as soon as I can!” He ends the call.

Stiles figures he doesn’t really want to hear them get flayed alive if he’s wrong about the wards holding the Čudnovata at bay.

“Deaton said—”

“I heard.” Derek turns so that he’s holding Stiles, hands on his hips, their chests pressing together. “Put your arms around me too. Whatever happens, don’t let go.”

“Wh-what?” But it is ridiculously easy to slip his arms around Derek, his palms sliding on Derek’s shirt and then the denim of his jeans. It’s easy to hook his trembling fingers through Derek’s belt loops.

“Close your eyes if you want.”

Oh, okay. Deaton said not to feed the Čudnovata, and if any one of them is going to offer it a big juicy meal of blind fucking panic, then of course it’s going to be Stiles. He closes his eyes, and lowers his head. He rests his forehead against Derek’s shoulder and turns his face toward his throat. Feels the rasp of his stubble against his cheek.

“Derek, I don’t want to die in this house. No offence!”

“You’re not going to die here.” Derek splays a hand against Stiles’s lower back. “Also, no offence? Really?”

“Okay.” Stiles sucks in a breath. It smells of Derek. “That came out wrong. I don’t mean that this place is like the secret elephant burial grounds for your family or anything. I mean, I know none of them _meant_ to die here. And it’s not like I’m too good to die where they did or anything… Fuck. I’m just making it worse, aren’t I?”

“Mmmm.” Derek rubs his back. “Keep talking if you want.”

“Stop being so nice to me. If you’re nice to me, I know you think we’re going to die.” He keeps his eyes shut, but he can feel Derek turning his head from side to side. “It’s all around us, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Keep your eyes closed.”

Stiles can’t breathe. “D-Derek!” There’s a weight pressing on his chest. He’s going to be sick. Can’t breathe. “Derek, I get—I get panic attacks.”

 “Shh. It’s okay.” Derek holds him tighter.

Only people who don’t get panic attacks say shit like ‘It’s okay.’ And Stiles would totally tear strips of Derek for being a condescending dick if he could only fucking _breathe_ right now. Hot tears sting his eyes, and yeah, now he’s hyperventilating, and he needs to get the fuck out of here, except Derek won’t let him move, because the only thing keeping them alive at this moment is standing on Peter Hale’s rotting fucking corpse. Panic claws at Stiles’s throat, and he sobs into Derek’s neck.

Then he hears footsteps.

He lifts his head and opens his eyes before he can stop himself.

It’s a girl. A teenage girl. Pretty. Glowing green eyes.

For a moment Stiles is more intrigued than terrified. She’s so beautiful that his breath catches in his throat. She smiles, and Derek growls lowly, the noise rumbling through his chest, vibrating against Stiles, and it almost sounds more possessive than protective. If they were at a club right now and Derek made that noise when some girl smiled at Stiles, it would be totally hot. But this isn’t a club, and that isn’t a girl, so the growl Derek makes is just fucking weird.

The Čudnovata holds out its hand.

Seriously? Stiles might be a hormonal sixteen-year-old boy, but he’s not completely stupid. It’s going to take more than a pretty face to get him to step off Peter Hale’s grave.

“Stiles,” the Čudnovata says. Its smile grows, something like electricity cracks in the air, and suddenly the girl’s gone and it’s his dad standing there. His _dad_. “I won’t hurt you, son.”

The illusion is good. Good enough that Stiles wishes it was true, but all the wishes in the world aren’t enough to make him forget what it is standing there, whatever face it’s wearing.

This is… _pointless._ These tricks won’t work on Stiles. And, out of the two of them, the Čudnovata has picked entirely the wrong target. Even if Stiles wanted to step toward it, Derek would never let him. It should have gone for Derek’s weaknesses—this is the place for them—instead of Stiles’s. So why hasn’t it?

And why didn’t it finish roasting the body of its first victim?

There’s something not right here.

Stiles closes his eyes again and takes a deep breath.

This is his brain. This is his brain on Adderall.

It wasn’t scared or distracted with its first victim. What could scare or distract a Čudnovata? It left that body there so it would be found. That body was bait, so who did it catch?

The police? Stiles? Derek?

_Derek._

The alpha of Beacon Hills. Stiles doesn’t pretend to know how this works, but he can only presume that the Čudnovata feeds to make itself more powerful. It feeds on fear, Deaton said, but it also feeds on flesh. And how much power does the flesh of an alpha wolf have? Derek is probably chockfull of supernatural mojo.

Electricity crackles in the air again.

“It’s you,” Stiles says, opening his eyes.

Derek frowns at him.

“It wants you.” Stiles pulls one hand free from his belt loops and reaches up to cup his cheek. “I don’t know… I don’t know why it’s trying to get at _me_ , though, why that would help it get at _you_.”

Derek growls again, and if Stiles wasn’t so afraid of imminent death he would totally be loving that sound.

“A spark thing,” he says. “Maybe it’s a spark thing.”

If it wants Derek’s supernatural mojo, maybe it wants Stiles’s as well. Deaton once said he was a spark, whatever the hell that means. Maybe he’d make a tasty little appetizer to the Čudnovata’s main course of char grilled werewolf.

“Yeah, a spark thing. That’s gotta be it, right?”

Derek’s eyes flash red. “Shut up, Stiles.”

The Čudnovata shifts again.

The dark-haired woman moving around them is beautiful. Of course she is. She’s Stiles’s mom.

“Oh.” Only a tiny sound, but it breaks something inside him, something Stiles didn’t know could be broken again. It’s his _mom_. “Mom?”

Derek’s fingers dig into his back. “Close your eyes, Stiles!”

No. He can’t do that. He knows it isn’t real, but it _looks_ real and he’s so tired of photographs, of fading memories that crumble into dust when he tries to hold them tight. Just for once he wants _this_. He wants to see her turn her head and smile. He wants to see the way she moves, and the way that motion shifts strands of her hair, or ruffles her skirt. He wants to see her be alive again.

“Your mom’s dead,” Derek says. “She’s not here.”

He knows that. This isn’t fair. Why isn’t the Čudnovata tormenting Derek? This house is where all Derek’s ghosts belong. This is where Derek is most vulnerable. Why is it picking on him instead?

 The Čudnovata’s laughter is full of light. “I’m right here!”

 “She’s not here,” Derek repeats.

He knows. It breaks his heart, but he knows.

“We’re not moving,” Stiles tells the thing wearing his mom’s face. He can feel Derek’s fingers digging into his back, and, shit, they’re claws now, jabbing at him through his shirt. “You know this is going to be the most boring standoff in the history of standoffs, right? Because we’re not moving.”

It can’t get to him. Not like this. Not even with that face, or that voice. Wherever it dredged his memories from—the memories of how his mom looked, sounded, moved, smiled—it isn’t her, and it can’t _know_. It can’t.

It can’t know.

“Stiles,” the Čudnovata says, its voice soft and gentle, strained a little with what might be unshed tears. “Sweetheart. _Why?_ ”

 

 

***

 

“Mom?”

His dad wasn’t there.

The machine had stopped beeping, and his dad wasn’t there.

“Mom?”

And suddenly the room was full of nurses and doctors, and Stiles was pushed out of the way.

“Mom!”

Except it wasn’t his mom that came and got him. It was Scott’s mom. And even though Stiles was way too big to get picked up, she picked him up anyway, and carried him outside, and she was crying and making shushing noises and telling him his dad was on his way and he’d be okay, except he _wouldn’t_ , and Stiles started screaming and screaming and screaming until he made himself vomit.

After that, he didn’t talk for a long time.

Not properly.

Days. Weeks. Months.

And when he finally did start talking again, when he discovered that he could distract himself from the silence with chatter, he never did tell his dad the truth.

He’d hated sitting there hour after hour, listening to that machine.

He’d wanted his mom to hurry up and die.

 

***

 

“Careful what you wish for, sweetheart,” the Čudnovata says.

Hot tears slide down Stiles’s cheeks. “Shut up.”

“Oh, honey. Don’t cry. You should be happy. You got what you wanted, didn’t you?”

“No.”

“But you did, baby. You wanted me to die!”

“Shut up!”

Derek growls again.

This is what the silence did to Stiles. This was what he heard from the moment the beeping stopped. _You did this. You wanted this. You made this happen._ And he’s spent half his life hearing those words in his head, but when he hears them in his own voice it isn’t so bad. Hearing them in her voice rips something open inside him, some old wound that never properly healed. Her voice cuts into him as cleanly as a scalpel, sharp and sudden, and by the time he feels the sting it’s already too late.

“Why, sweetheart? Why?”

Stiles wants to jam his hands over his ears. He wants to scream. It’s not his mom, and it’s not fair that it knows exactly what to say to hurt him. “Shut up! Derek, make it shut up!”

Derek’s growling again, the low rumble vibrating through both of them. He tenses, muscles shifting, and suddenly Stiles understands: this is the trap, right here. This is what the Čudnovata wants. It’s hurting Stiles because he’s the weak link here. It’s hurting him because it wants to make Derek angry enough to attack. It wants Derek to step off Peter’s grave.

“Derek!” Panic spikes in him. He curls his hand around the back of Derek’s neck. “It’s okay. I didn’t mean it. I’m okay.”

This is the trap, and somehow Stiles is the bait.

Somehow the Čudnovata knows what Stiles is only just figuring out: that Derek Hale will always come charging in to rescue him. And maybe that’s always been the case, but maybe it’s not just because Stiles is Scott’s weird friend and Derek wants Scott as a part of his pack. Maybe it’s not just because Derek just always happens to be in the right place at the right time, and saving Stiles would be less hassle than having to explain later why he didn’t. Maybe Derek always being there means more than Stiles has ever really considered. Maybe it means _everything_ , even though Derek can’t say it.

“Oh,” Stiles says. He catches Derek’s gaze and holds it. Derek has beautiful fucking eyes. Stiles can see whole universes in them. “ _Oh_.”

 

***

 

Nothing— _nothing_ —is going to make him let go of Derek now.

And Derek’s rescuing him all over again, just by being here.

Just by holding him.

 

***

 

Deaton and Scott burst into the Hale house like they’re goddamn action heroes. Action heroes wearing scrubs and smelling of puppy urine, but still, Stiles counts it as a win. Then, screwing his eyes shut as he cops a face full of—is it chalk dust? Why the hell would it be chalk dust?— _something_ , he flinches as the Čudnovata _screams_.

The Čudnovata, his mom, they sound the same, and his breath hitches and he tries to pull away—he knows it’s not really her, but it’s instinct—but Derek won’t let him move. The Čudnovata screams again, and Stiles remembers that sound from when his mom was in pain and there was nothing he could do except sit there and listen and cry. His mom didn’t scream—she was beyond screaming—but that’s the exact same sound Stiles’s heart made.

He opens his eyes, and tries to twist away from Derek.

“No,” Derek says, one hand on Stiles’s back, and the other cupping his face. His thumb swipes over his cheekbone, sliding through tears. “I’ve got you, Stiles.”

And then, when it’s all over, when the Čudnovata has vanished to fuck only knows where and Stiles is left standing in the Hale house covered in chalk dust, with Derek Hale holding him so close that they’re sharing breath between them, it’s suddenly pretty fucking awkward.

Stiles wants Derek to let him go, but, also, a part of him doesn’t.

But he knows the longer Derek holds him, the weirder it gets.

“Stiles,” Scott says at last, his voice tentative. “Do you want me to take you home, dude?”

That’s when Derek seems to shake himself awake. He stares at Stiles with something like horror in his eyes, and abruptly pushes him away.

It’s so sudden it’s like he pushed all Stiles’s breath out of him as well. It takes Stiles a moment to find his balance again, and longer still to find his breath.

“Yeah.” Stiles looks at Derek, but Derek’s turned away and is stalking up the stairs. “Yeah, Scott. Please.”

 

***

 

Stiles has had enough experience with supernatural life-threatening incidents to know that it never quite works out like it does in movies. There’s no big emotional moment where everybody hugs it out, or cries it out, or even fucks it out. Well, maybe some of the others fuck it out, but Stiles has never been invited to that sort of after party. Basically, if eating Cheetos and playing video games doesn’t count as psychological first aid, Stiles is out of options.

There is no outpouring of emotion, no tears, no desperate, magical kiss as the credits roll.

There’s just Stiles, letting himself into his dark, empty house.

So.

Just another moment when Derek Hale saved his life, right? By cuddling him, basically. And technically, Stiles supposes, it was Deaton and Scott who got rid of the Čudnovata. But it was Derek who kept Stiles alive long enough for them to get there.

Stiles can’t sleep when he goes to bed that night.

He sends Derek a text: _That night we were gonna do it, did you want to or was I just a pity fuck?_

He waits an hour for a reply before he remembers that Derek lost his phone.

Maybe that’s for the best. Maybe he doesn’t really want to know. Maybe what he felt today, what he was sure he felt before Derek pushed him away, was no more real than the sound of his mom’s laughter.

What he saw in Derek’s gaze, what he thought he saw…he doesn’t know anymore. There’s probably nothing between them at all, except Stiles’s wishful thinking, and the simple fact that Derek didn’t want him to die tonight.

He takes a Xanax and finally crashes out.

 

***

 

So fuck his life, and fuck that obviously defective Xanax, because less than three hours after he falls asleep he’s awake again, and it’s two in the morning and his dad’s still at work because he’s searching for a psycho killer who removes the skin of his victims, and he probably hasn’t slept in _days_ and Stiles can’t even do him a favor and tell him to stop looking. So fuck everything.

Especially Derek.

Fuck him most of all.

(Stiles wishes.)

He goes online instead, gets involved in an argument about Marvel versus DC, then downloads a bunch of music he doesn’t even like but somehow totally gets stuck in his brain.

He heads downstairs at three to make a chocolate milk. Shut up. He can have a chocolate milk if he wants. Chocolate milk isn’t just for kindergarteners. Then he goes back upstairs, takes stock of what music he just downloaded, and wondered what the fuck he was thinking.

Still, who even cares?

Nobody, that’s who.

Stiles can drink chocolate milk and sing along to manufactured pop songs in the middle of the night, not because he’s sad and pathetic, but because he’s a fucking _boss_.

 

***

 

Stiles wakes up face-down on the couch wearing his underwear and a chocolate milk mustache.

“Tell me you didn’t sleep here,” his dad says.

“I didn’t sleep here,” Stiles says obediently.

His dad shakes his head and wanders back toward the kitchen.

Stiles gets up, stretches, scratches his stomach, and follows him. “Speaking of inappropriate sleep behavior, is there any chance of you becoming diurnal again in the near future? Or are you evolving into some sort of bat?”

John hits the button on the coffee machine. “I’ll grab a few hours now, then I’m going back into work after lunch.”

Stiles pushes past him and turns the machine off.

“Hey!”

“No caffeine for you. I’ll bet you’ve been drinking coffee all night. I’ll make you a smoothie.”

“I want a damned coffee.” There’s no fight in his tone though.

“You’re having a banana and spinach smoothie. With skim milk.”

“Damn.” His dad sits down at the kitchen table. “How about you? You weren’t up all night playing video games, were you?”

Stiles rattles around in the refrigerator looking for the spinach. “Actually, I wasn’t. First I couldn’t sleep so I came downstairs, then I guess I crashed out on the couch.”

“Do we need to talk to the doctor about your meds?”

Stiles shoves a handful of spinach leaves into the blender, and follows it with a banana and milk. He’d totally throw some carrot in there as well, if he even thought for a second his dad would let him get away with it. “No. No, Dad, I’m…”

And for what feels like the first time in his life, he doesn’t know how to finish a sentence. He looks down at his hand on the lid of the blender, and his fingers are shaking.

“Stiles?”

He wants to tell his dad that yesterday he saw his mom’s face again, and heard her laugh, and her voice, and he wants it to be a good thing. He doesn’t want to tell his dad about the things she said that cut him to the quick. The wounds she carved open again.

“Stiles.” His dad’s voice is pitched low with concern, and suddenly he’s right there, hands on Stiles’s shoulders, turning him into an embrace that a part of Stiles insists he’s too old for, but it feels so nice he doesn’t resist. “Hey. What’s going on with you?”

Stiles doesn’t even begin to know how to answer that.

“Is this about that boy?” his dad asks. “Because you say the word, and I’ll—”

Stiles snorts.

“So it’s not about a boy?” His dad pats his back and then asks, cautiously: “A girl?”

Stiles wishes his life was such a teenage cliché that his problems were that simple.

His dad sighs, and for a long time they just stand there in the kitchen, holding one another.

“Do you miss her?” Stiles asks eventually into his dad’s shoulder.

“Every day, kid.” The breath shudders out of him. “Every single day.”

Stiles wants to tell him, but he can’t.

He wants to say _“Dad, I wanted her to hurry up and die”_ and he wants his dad to say, _“Stiles, you were a kid. You were a kid who didn’t know how to deal with watching your mom die. It wasn’t your fault.”_

But he doesn’t.

Stiles decides that guilt, like unrequited love, is easier borne alone. It’s bad enough it exists at all, but he doesn’t need to share it with his dad. Stiles loves his dad. He doesn’t ever want to do anything that might change that. And it won’t, of course it won’t—this is the man who gave him the talk about the bees and the bees, after all—but that doesn’t mean Stiles can shut out that insidious voice at the back of his head that whispers: _But it_ could.

He can’t risk that.

He won’t.

“I’m okay,” he says, pulling back and forcing a smile. “I guess I had weird dreams about mom or something.”

His dad’s face is creased with concern. “You sure, kiddo?”

“Yeah.” He shakes it off. “Yeah, I’m good.”

He turns the blender on to put an end to the conversation.

Denial is the best thing ever.

 

***

 

“Are you okay?” Scott asks him that afternoon at practice.

Before Stiles can even answer, he’s tripping over the crosse that some douche has shoved between his ankles.

“You suck, Stilinski,” Jackson says, looming over him once he’s hit the ground.

Stiles grabs Scott’s wrist before he wolfs out.

“You know,” he says, hauling himself to his feet. “Fuck this, I’m going home.”

 

***

 

Stiles is _not_ dancing to _Ugly Heart_ when it happens. Not at all. Because he is not the sort of guy who goes looking for validation for his angsty teenage emotions in popular songs. It’s just a crazy coincidence that Derek is cover boy pretty with an ugly heart. (And it _is_ such a pity.)

So he’s _not_ dancing to _Ugly Heart_ , and he’s _not_ belting the lyrics out at the top of his lungs, and he’s not totally absolutely fucking mortified when he spins around to find Derek Hale climbing in his window.

Well fuck his life. Again.

Stiles drops his iPod on the floor. “And we’ll never speak of that again.”

That can’t be the hint of a smile on Derek’s cover boy pretty face, can it?

Stiles tries for a smile of his own. It probably misfires. “We’ll add it to the list.”

“The list?” Derek leans against his wall and folds his arms over his chest.

“The list of things we’ll never talk about,” Stiles informs him.

Derek raises his eyebrows. “Such as?”

“Nuh uh uh. Because we’re not talking about them. There is literally no point in having a list of things we’re not going to talk about, if we then talk about what’s on the list. This list needs to be the Fight Club of lists.”

Derek nods slowly. “But maybe I should know what’s on the list, just so I don’t accidentally bring something up in conversation.”

Stiles almost laughs. “Since when do you accidentally bring anything up in conversation? Since when do you _have_ a conversation?”

Derek narrows his eyes. “Isn’t that what we’re doing now?”

“This is more like banter,” Stiles says. “It’s the conversation we have when we’re not actually having a conversation.”

Derek does something complicated with his eyebrows. “Stiles.”

Stiles doesn’t like the way his heartbeat skips when Derek says his name. He also doesn’t like the way that Derek can probably hear it. “What?”

“Don’t you ever shut up?”

“No. No I don’t. Apart from sleep, I guess.” Stiles bends down and picks up his iPod. Plays with the cord. “Well, I’m not actually sure. It’s highly possible that I talk in my sleep. I’ve never actually recorded myself to find out. Because it would either be weird and a little bit creepy, or incredibly boring. No good can come of it either way.”

“Stiles.”

Stiles swallows. “What?”

“What happens when you’re quiet?”

That was not what he was expecting Derek to say. Okay, he has no idea what he was expecting, but he’s pretty sure it wasn’t anything like that.

“No,” he says, and crosses the floor to stand in front of Derek. “No.”

“No?”

“No!” Stiles pushes him. It has exactly the same effect as pushing a brick wall. None at all. “That’s not how this works. You’re doing it wrong!”

Derek catches his wrists. “What am I doing wrong?”

Stiles stares at Derek’s fingers, wrapped around his wrists. He absolutely should not find that as hot as he does. Any second now he’ll sport an awkward boner.

Derek growls when he doesn’t answer.

And oh, there’s his boner. Fucking great.

Stiles pulls free, absurdly grateful that Derek lets it happen. “No, we’re not talking about the things on the list. And if we were, we’d talk about you and me, okay, not just _me_. Because that’s how it works. I’d talk and you’d listen, and then we’d swap, and we’d keep doing it until it was all sorted out, okay? That’s how it _works_.”

“How what works?”

“People, Derek. _People_.” Stiles groans. “You are fucking impossible! You do this all the time. Just when I think I’ve got you figured out, just when I think we’re on the same page, suddenly you’ve backed the fuck off and I don’t even think we’re in the same _book_ anymore.” He holds up a hand to forestall Derek’s objection. “That was a _metaphor_. Just go with it.”

Derek presses his lips together and nods curtly.

“Thank you.” Stiles rubs the heel of his hand over his buzz cut. “So tell me, please, if apparently we’re not going to repress it, what was yesterday?”

“Yesterday?”

“Yeah, you remember, when we were pretty much dry humping on your uncle’s grave.”

Derek’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Okay, so maybe that’s not exactly how you remember it. Me neither. But it wasn’t exactly a buddy hug, was it? A hug between buddies? Because I don’t think Scott’s ever hugged me like that.” He holds Derek’s gaze, and exhales slowly. Shrugs. Lets all his attitude out with his breath, and feels suddenly, achingly naked. “It, um, it _felt_ like something else. Was it?”

Derek’s eyes widen slightly. He jerks his head in a nod. “Yes.”

Stile’s heart skips a beat. “Yes?”

“Yes.”

Stiles can hardly hear him over the rush of blood in his skull. “Um. Okay.” His breath catches. He swallows. “No, actually, not okay. You need to expand on that a little.”

Derek narrows his eyes, and says, through gritted teeth, “I have feelings for you.”

“Tingly feelings, or homicidal feelings?” Because at the moment Stiles is afraid it’s the second one.

“Stiles.” Derek looks like he’s about to have an aneurism. “Do not make me say _tingly_.”

A laugh Stiles didn’t even know he was capable of bubbles up from somewhere deep inside him. “Oh, sweet zombie Jesus. You. Just. _Did_!”

“Shut up,” Derek says, but that’s definitely a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. And then it’s gone again, and Derek’s brows knit together. “Last time…I didn’t mean… I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. I said it wrong.”

“You say everything wrong,” Stiles tells him helpfully.

“I know.”

“But you’re doing okay now,” Stiles concedes. “Anything else you want to get off your chest?”

Derek raises his eyebrows. “Yeah, you don’t suck. Your teammates are just assholes.”

Stiles grins.

“And…” Derek hesitates. “And if what the Čudnovata said was true—”

“It was.” His stomach hurts. He reaches out and, half-afraid that Derek will pull away, touches Derek’s hand. He brushes his fingertips over Derek’s knuckles and shivers when Derek turns his hand so their fingers can entwine. “It was true.”

Stiles doesn’t need Derek’s validation or whatever. His ego isn’t that fragile. But it’s more of a relief than he can even hope to articulate when Derek raises their clasped hands, then dips his head and brushes his lips across Stiles’s knuckles.

He doesn’t say anything, but that’s okay. Right now, in this moment, Stiles doesn’t need words. He closes his eyes as Derek’s breath warms his fingers. He shivers, and then ruins the moment by snorting.

“I take back everything I ever said about having a list of things we don’t talk about. Because when we talk, dude, look what fucking happens!”

Derek squeezes his hand.

“But also,” Stiles says, “if we can stop the talking and get to the making out, that would be totally awesome.”

Derek growls, and backs him into the wall.

And it _is_ awesome.

 

***

 

Derek’s hands are hot, almost as hot as his mouth, and they’re everywhere at once. Not in a creepy way; Stiles is totally on board with this. Every pass of Derek’s hands up Stiles’s sides, under his shirt, his fingertips following the ridges and dips of his ribcage, makes him squirm. Derek’s stubble rasps against his collarbone as he lays a trail of hot kisses around Stiles’s throat. He sucks on Stiles’s throat for a moment, and it’s hot and a little bit dangerous—jugular, meet wolf—but it’s so fucking incredible that all Stiles can do is moan and try not to slam his head too hard against his wall. Because ouch.

“Derek. Derek!” Stiles grabs him by the hair, because as incredible as it is to have Derek’s mouth on his throat, he needs Derek’s mouth on his mouth. Right now. Immediately. “Here. Here.”

Derek makes a low sound in his throat, and licks a stripe up Stiles’s neck.

“Oh, fuck.”

Derek is not playing fair. No, he is not.

Derek slides his hands down Stiles’s lower back, and then lower still, and suddenly—Stiles isn’t entirely sure how it happens, but it probably has something to do with werewolf strength—he’s lifting Stiles, and it’s the most obvious thing in the world for Stiles to wrap his legs around Derek’s hips and try and get some friction on his dick. On both their dicks, hopefully.

“Nuh uh.” Derek grins at him, showing fangs. He pushes Stiles against the wall again, keeping one hand under his ass. His other hand catches Stiles’s wrists and shoves them up above his head, and Stiles is suddenly helpless. And, if his dick has anything to say about it, totally happy about that.

“Derek, c’mon!” Stiles juts his chin out, his mouth seeking Derek’s, and Derek relents at last.

His first kiss. It’s a lot less romantic comedy and a lot more porntastic than Stiles had imagined, but he’s not complaining. At all. Actually, he might be complaining. He’s making a sound that’s embarrassingly like a whimper, not because he doesn’t like what’s going on here, but because he wants _more_. Whatever Derek Fucking Hale is selling, Stiles is buying.

Derek’s mouth is hot, the press of his lips firm. The slide of his tongue, first against the seam of Stiles’s lips, easing it open, and then pushing forward into his mouth, is intense. Stiles squirms, moans, and embarrasses himself in a million minute ways as they kiss, and he doesn’t even care. Maybe later he’ll be mortified at being such a totally awkward virgin—he might as well wear a flashing neon sign—but for now he’ll just ride this crazy train as far as it goes.

Not that Derek’s a crazy train.

Stiles absolutely wants to ride him though.

He wrenches his mouth free. “This whole time, did you like me?”

“Yes.” Derek’s breath is hot against his face.

“Wow.” Stiles really wishes he had that My Little Pony Journal after all. Because right next to the page entitled “Squishy and Tingly Feelings I Have For Derek Hale”, there should be a page entitled “Squishy and Tingly Feelings Derek Hale Finally Admitted He Has For Me.” And maybe, just maybe, Derek didn’t mean to be a total dick this whole time after all. Maybe he’s just seriously god-awful at communicating with anything apart from his eyebrows. “Really?”

Derek gives a frustrated growl. “Yes!”

“Right,” Stiles says, panting. “More kissing, yes.”

Because even if he didn’t mean it Derek _was_ a total dick, and Stiles is not giving him a pass on that, but it’s certainly something he can put aside for now and deal with later, when they’ve got their other pressing needs, like Stiles’s erection—and fine, sure, Derek’s too—out of the way.

“More kissing, Derek, and then I want you to fuck me.”

Well, look at him prioritizing like an adult.

 

***

 

Fifteen minutes later they’re tangled up on Stiles’s bed, Stiles’s shirt is on the floor, and if Derek doesn’t get Stiles’s jeans off immediately, there will be trouble. Big trouble.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Stiles grunts, and pops the button on his fly. “It’s not that hard!”

Derek stills above him, and grins. “Are you sure about that?”

He puts his hand on Stiles’s jeans, right over his dick. And somehow puts a few thousand volts of electricity through him. Stiles almost jack-knifes off the mattress.

“Derek!” He flops back down again, gasping for breath. “Holy shit! You might want to take it easy, I think I’m on kind of a hair trigger here.”

Derek leans down over him and nips at his bottom lip. “Wanna see you come.”

“Oh.” Stiles’s breath whooshes out of him. “In that case, carry on.”

Derek rubs his jaw against Stiles’s cheek, and the rasp of his stubble is just insane. Seriously, Stiles has no idea why something like that should set his whole body alight, but there’s no point questioning it. It’s apparently a thing that exists, like gravity. It’s inescapable.

“Oh my god,” Stiles whimpers. This is going to be over embarrassingly fast. Like he’s thirteen years old and just discovered Redtube fast.

Derek tugs Stiles's zip open, and that tiny rasp of metal teeth has never sounded more laden. Stiles will probably never be able to take his jeans off without thinking right back to this moment. Then, suddenly, his jeans are around his thighs and—holy crap—so is his Batman underwear.

Derek leans up suddenly. He grabs the hem of his Henley and pulls it over his head.

“Holy shit,” Stiles whispers, awestruck, because who has abs like that? Those shouldn’t exist outside of fantasy. Then Derek is unfastening his own jeans and Stiles’s brain just shorts out.

Gone.

Popped like a light bulb.

Nothing but static.

He’s staring at Derek Fucking Hale’s dick.

Sweet. Zombie. Jesus. He wants it. He wants it in every conceivable way. To touch it, to taste it, and to take it all the way inside him. Shit. Is he ready for that? He doesn’t know. He also doesn’t want to overthink it, because it seems that right now would be a really good time to keep his brain offline and just work purely on instinct. He doesn’t need anything else—like worrying about how much it might hurt, or how he has no fucking idea what he’s doing and will probably be terrible at it—getting in the way.

“Stiles?”

“Mmm?” Oh, that’s right, eye contact. Derek has eyes too.

Derek hooks a finger under Stiles’s chin, and angles his face up for a gentle kiss. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes. Fuck, yes. Or, yes, fuck.”

“Have you got lube?”

He’s a hormonal teenage boy who’s in charge of the grocery shopping. Of course he’s got lube. “Top drawer. Condoms too, if, um, if we need them.”

“I can’t catch or transmit STIs, so it’s your call.”

“I am totally good with no condom.”  Stiles does not need his dad finding a used condom in the garbage. Not that his dad roots through the garbage looking for such things, but why risk it?

Derek leans over to haul the drawer of the nightstand open, while Stiles wriggles the rest of the way out of his jeans. Then Derek’s lying beside him, holding the tube, and shit just got totally real. A part of Stiles would prefer that Derek not hold his gaze while his fingers are heading south, because it’s a bit weird. Why can’t things like preparation happen in some sort of magical haze, and they can jump straight from foreplay to fucking without any awkwardness between? He flinches when Derek’s lube-slippery fingers graze his pubes—should he have shaved? Waxed?—then bypass his dick and balls, and hone in unerringly on his hole. Stiles can feel his face burning.

“Are you sure?”

Stiles nods. “Yeah.”

The first press of Derek’s finger inside him just feels weird. Like weird enough that Stiles wonders if all porn that has ever existed has lied or, more likely, if there’s something wrong with _him_. Wouldn’t that be just his luck? He gets turned on in a stiff breeze, but he’s so defective it turns out he doesn’t like sex. He’ll be doomed to jack off for the rest of his life which, although it’s great, Stiles had hoped wouldn’t hold a candle to the real deal.

Just when he’s wondering how he’s going to fake some enthusiasm for this, Derek twists his finger in deeper, and curls it or something, and _holyshitfuckchristballs_ that’s gotta be his prostate. “Jesus!”

“You like that?”

“No, I just picked now to find religion,” Stiles mutters, because fuck Derek’s stupid hot smug face. And Derek actually smiles. Honest-to-god smiles, and when he leans down to press his mouth against Stiles’s he huffs out a breath that might almost be a laugh. And Stiles did that. He kisses Derek back more fiercely, bravely, because he made Derek Hale almost laugh, and that’s like a legit fucking superpower. “Come on. Do more dirty things to me.”

And this time it’s definitely a laugh, and Stiles beams in response. For a moment, at least, because then Derek’s working a second finger inside him and things are getting totally serious. It feels weird. _Good_ weird. Each press of Derek’s fingers lights Stiles up from the inside, and he squirms, and before he knows it he’s actually rocking back and forth a little on Derek’s fingers, and he can’t quite catch his breath. Derek is stretching him, and it aches, but it also feels like the best thing in the world.

Sex is complicated. _Good_ complicated.

“Derek. Derek, Derek.”

“Okay.” Derek draws his fingers out, and Stiles grumbles at their loss. Then Derek’s hands are on his thighs, pushing his legs up, opening them more, making space for Derek to kneel between them.

“Oh _shit_.” When he feels the hot, blunt head of Derek’s cock pressing against his hole, Stiles has a momentary panic-flail. Derek soothes it away with a line of kisses up his throat and jaw, until Stiles is sinking into the mattress. Then Derek presses in, and _holyjesusfuckstick_ there’s no going back now. Derek Hale’s dick is in his ass. This is momentous. This is life changing. He should tweet this. Where did he leave his phone?

“Stiles.” Derek narrows his eyes. “Focus.”

Busted.

Stiles pulls him close for a messy kiss. “You have my undivided attention, sourwolf.”

And then he really does, because the ache sharpens a little, and it’s an actual hurt, and Stiles sucks in a quick breath.

“Okay?”

Stiles doesn’t know if he wants it out, or further in. “Just, um, just go slow?”

Derek goes fucking glacial, each tiny increment of forward movement accompanied by a kiss, or a touch, or some indistinct comforting murmur. And slowly, so fucking slowly, the ache loses its sharp edge of pain, and transforms into something else. It’s want. Stiles’s dick hardens again, and suddenly everything is right with the world, and they’ve fallen into a rhythm that even Stiles’s uncoordinated body can follow, and it feels _good_. Really, really good. He wants more.

“Oh, fuck. Derek, _fuck_.”

Luckily Derek can read between the lines, because he picks up the pace. And wow, werewolf stamina is going to be fun to explore. Stiles works a hand between their bodies and wraps his fingers around his dick. Each thrust jolts his prostate, jolts his hand, and jolts his dick. He could do this for hours, except he’s so fucking close already.

When Derek growls and bites his throat, he’s done.

Seriously done, in a shuddering mess of flailing limbs and explosive bodily fluids. When he clenches around Derek’s dick Derek is done as well, and holy crap, it was his first time and they both came pretty much together. He is clearly a sex god. High five!

“High five,” he mumbles, and tries to raise a floppy hand.

Derek just growls gently into his throat before rolling off him.

They lie there, limbs tangled together still, and Stiles tries to remember how to breathe. Then he tries to remember how not to freak out. Because he just had sex with Derek Fucking Hale.

“Stiles.” Derek rubs his chest. “I can hear you freaking out.”

“Actually, this is a pre-freak out,” Stiles tells him. “When it’s the real thing, you’ll know it.”

Derek lifts himself up onto one elbow and glares at him. “Stop it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Stop it.” Derek’s glare darkens. “You’re not allowed to freak out about this.”

“Oh, and you’re somehow going to stop it, are you? With your scary sourwolfiness?”

Derek huffs. “Yes.”

It’s the most ridiculous thing Stiles has ever heard.

He laughs so hard he completely forgets to freak out.

 

 

***

 

They don’t talk.

Not exactly. But after Derek gets dressed he kisses Stiles so slowly that he almost melts, and then says he’ll see him tomorrow.

So they don’t talk. But it doesn’t matter.

Sometimes they don’t need to talk.

It turns out silence isn’t always as scary as Stiles thought.

 

***

 

At school the next day, Scott gives him a weird look in homeroom, followed by a slow sniff, and then vanishes. He’s back before lunch, when he presents Stiles with an embarrassed grin and a balloon animal. It could be a giraffe. Or a poodle. Stiles isn’t really sure.

“A balloon animal, really?” Stiles can’t help his grin. “Thanks, Scotty.”

Scott gives him the tightest bro-hug known to mankind, and then ruins it all by saying, “I still think he’s kind of a dick.”

Stiles smacks him on the head with his giraffe-poodle. “Hey, that’s my kind-of-boyfriend you’re talking about.”

Scott grins. “And how are you going to break it to your dad that your kind-of-boyfriend is an ex-murder suspect in his twenties?” 

Fuck Scott.

And fuck his life.

Stiles figures he needs some time to adjust to all of this before he even thinks about breaking it to his dad. Probably about a decade or so. Yeah, a decade should do it.

 

***

 

It takes Derek another week to get around to buying a new phone.

Derek is in Stiles’s room, in Stiles’s bed, when he turns it on and all his old text messages start coming through.

Stiles hears when Derek makes a noise caught somewhere between hurt and surprise, and he remembers, his face burning, the text message he sent the night that Derek saved him from the Čudnovata: _That night we were gonna do it, did you want to or was I just a pity fuck?_

His own phone buzzes. His heart races as he looks down at the screen.

_You are the best thing in my life._

Stiles is absolutely not choking up. He looks up and smiles at Derek, and Derek smiles back at him, and then Stiles is climbing into his lap, twining his arms around his throat and kissing him.

He’s so happy he could...

No. He’s not going to cry.

But he might have to invest in that My Little Pony journal after all, because it turns out he’s got a lot of feels right now and maybe, just maybe, they’re worth recording.

“You’re not so bad yourself, Derek Fucking Hale,” he says, and Derek grins, laughs, and buries his face in Stiles’s neck.

 


End file.
